


Line and Verse

by BoxWineConfessions



Series: From Almaty, With Love [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Death of a Parent, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Mentions of addiction, Passage of time, coming to terms with sexuality, communication issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 11:13:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 55,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9320999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoxWineConfessions/pseuds/BoxWineConfessions
Summary: Yuri was once told that the best stories have no ending. Otabek has never had a problem in turning the page and beginning a new. Together, they write new chapters.Prequels, sequels, and oneshots from the "From Almaty With Love" universe. Read what you like, discontinue any time.Current verse:  “I want to apply for admission at St. Petersburg University.” Otabek locks eyes with him again, traps his lower lip between his teeth, and then looks away furtively. “If it’s okay with you,” he adds quickly. Then, “I’m really afraid that I won’t get in.” It’s a lot of words for Otabek at once. He looks physically tired from forming the words and telling them to Yuri.





	1. Line and Verse

Otabek doesn’t much care for poetry. This becomes apparent upon his fifth birthday. He peels away the wrapping carefully, as to not disturb the thick butcher paper in which the gift is wrapped. Father had decorated it with brilliant drawings of the mountains which dot the view of Almaty. Of course he’s heard a great deal about this place Almaty, but no longer remembers it. They haven’t been there since he was very, very young. The sky is a mixture of gold and reds that fade into a twilight purple. The grasses in the foreground are not only green, but fade into an autumn rust red. It’s how the grass looks, now that it’s thoroughly autumn.  The mountains themselves are peaked in dark blue, fade into light blue, and look deep and vast as they often do in real life.

Otabek knows it’s a book by the shape and the weight.

At bedtime, his father takes it into his hands which are dappled by darker skin spots and reads to him in a voice that is soft and almost whisper like.

_There’s a light in the attic_

_Through the house is dark and shuttered_

_I can see a flickerin’ flutter_

_And I know what it’s about._

_There’s a light on in the attic_

_I can see it from the outside_

_And I know you’re on the inside…lookin’ out._

 

Otabek wrestles an arm out from underneath the impossibly bulky blankets and tugs at his father’s shirtsleeve. “And then what?”

“And then…” His father turns the page thoughtfully. He looks at Otabek over his gold wire rimmed glasses with a smile. “Nothing. That’s the end of the poem Beka.”

“What do you mean?” He says gesturing to the bulk of pages which are left in the book.

“Those are different poems,” he says as if the thought had never occurred to him that the rest of the pages should contain a coherent story. “Let’s try another one.”

_If we had hinges on our heads_

_There wouldn’t be no sin_

Father playfully splays his palm on the crown of Otabek’s head. His fingers are long and spindle like.

_Cause we could take the bad stuff out._

_And leave the good stuff in._

Otabek didn’t really like the book, but his father often read to him from it. Otabek, even in his younger years could understand that for whatever reason, this book although far more boring than anything else he had on his shelf, was important to father.

* * *

 

Otabek met Yusef that same year. Mother wasn’t in seminar on that day, but she had to come to campus to turn in a paper to her musical theory professor. Her work was on Verdi, and so by that point Otabek had an opinion or two on the composer.

He’d spent many an afternoon at his mothers’ side while she pressed rewind/fast forward in rapid succession on the cassette tape and listened to the same bits and chords over and over again.

“Momma, can’t you play it?” he’d asked when the cassette player finally chewed up and spit out miles and miles of magnetic tape.

Mother looked at him like he had grown a second head.

The flat in Vienna was small. There was his room, his parents room, the living room, the kitchen, and a small room where they kept an upright piano that had seen better days. Yes, it had real ivory keys, but the wood was in desperate need of refinishing. There were water stains, and deep grooves from careless movers.

Yet, it was always kept in perfect tune no matter how sorry it looked.

Quickly, and without another word, they moved to the piano. She’d play a few measures, stop, mash out a few words on the typewriter, and go back to mashing the piano keys.

Father’s office was on the fifth floor of a building where everything was marked by perfect scrolls, ornate fleur de leis patterns, fine archways, and delicate leaves of ivy, all of which were carved into unyielding limestone facades and delicate marble interiors.

“What is your lecture on today little professor?” Otabek’s father greets him with a smile and a pinch to the cheek.

He looks very, very gray today. His hair is always gray. His complexion looks about the same.

“Verdi,” he replies in a matter of fact tone. “I’m tired of it and so is mama.”

In a rush to get the theory paper turned in on time, mother had all but dragged him across campus. His hand stung slightly from the intensity of her grasp. Not to mention he was quite upset they didn’t stop to talk to any of the other graduate students or professors in the department.

The paper weights of music students are far more fun than those of literature students. Where the music students have canastas, maracas, and triangles that make tinny noises, literature students have little more than stacks of unbound papers. Worse still, if you ask them to read the contents of said papers, they’re boring.

His father laughs. It’s a soft and barely there like the chimes mother hung outside the kitchen window which barely float and clink together in the spring breeze. “If you’ve wrung out the great mysteries of Verdi, perhaps you can help us decipher some of these Avicenna texts.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t force these kinds of problems onto your graduate students,” mother chides as father ushers them into his office.

Walking into the office is like being transported to a strange kind of waiting room where time travelers rest in-between eras. There’s still the endlessly tall vaulted ceilings, alongside crown molding on the walls and baseboards that look like the sugar frosted boarders of wedding cakes. However, the intricate slate and marble and mosaic images end. Instead there’s nothing but dust gray carpet stained with coffee.

The room smells faintly of cigarette smoke and rosemary. Otabek’s only seen evidence of rosemary in the windowsill. Father’s desk is a high topped piece of mahogany carved in the Chippendale style, although he’s heard mother refer to it as “reproduction” whatever that means. On top of it is perched a brand new, bright orange iMac computer. Behind that are two large bookcases. The books spill over into boxes on the floor. These too are an amalgam of old and new. Leather binding, laminated library covers, molding pages, and seventh editions. Blinding light pours in from the large windows that go almost from floor to ceiling.

Accompanying it is a table that father has said is “colonial.” To Otabek it means that it’s very plain. At the table sits a man who is rifling through several mountains of copy paper. He has toner stains on his fingers and on his cheek bones, but other than that he is quite plain. He has a beard neatly trimmed, golden brown eyes. His clothes are at least one size too large.

“I haven’t done anything with the classics since graduate school Darya. This is his project, I’m just along for the ride.” He laughs again, and claps his hand onto Otabek’s shoulder. “Otabek, this is my poor doctoral student Yusef.”

* * *

 

Otabek doesn’t much care for poetry, but his father does.

father spends more time in bed than out of it these days. He rarely goes to the university. He climbs into father and mother’s bed and reads to him what he can from the book he got for his birthday last year. He’s not very good, and most of the words he can’t even sound out properly.

Father listens patiently until he decides it’s his turn to read. Otabek listens until father decides it’s time to sleep.

* * *

 

Yusef brings twenty boxes of books to the flat with the help of the other graduate students.

Mother tells them to take what they’d like.

Yusef tells her she should go through them first and make sure that there aren’t any special editions.

Otabek can remember standing in the hallway in the little blind spot where the living room melted succeeded to the hallway. Mother stood on one side of the boxes piled high. Yusef stood on the other. “Otabek might like them someday.”

It never really occurred to him that they’d ever see Yusef again. They go back to Almaty for awhile and stay with mother and grandmother in a palace that they call a house. They spend time in Germany, Switzerland, and settle finally on Paris. Mother has a cousin who lives in Paris.

Otabek can recall one of his cousin’s dinner parties. It was a long and stuffy affair, and he very much wanted to rip off his bow tie.

He’d gone to the kitchen specifically to ask for some juice and permission to go upstairs. Mother was at the counter helping his cousin, Alina get out the rest of the china for after dinner tea and coffee.

A man walked into the room and asked where it would be appropriate for him to go outside and have a cigarette. He has a beard neatly trimmed, golden brown eyes. His clothes are at least one size too large. He had no toner on his hands or on his cheeks.

Mother dropped a €1200 Versache serving platter on the floor as soon as she saw him. It was white enamel with a gilded rim. The sharp crack of the china verbalized what the chronically quiet people would never say out loud, and the cascaded shards against the kitchen tiles spoke even more. Things would irrevocably change on that night, much like the plate was irrevocably changed to shards.

Moving forward wouldn’t be easy. Mother didn’t return to Vienna for a reason. There was too much pain in the memories there.

* * *

 

Yusef pours over a number of books old and new to find a suitable reading for the ceremony. He sticks predominantly to the classics. It’s his area of study, and it is out of respect. He pours through _Treatise on Love,_ which isn’t so much a poem as it is a jumbled mess of conscious. He toys with the idea of something more conventional, but well outside of his father’s area of expertise; modern Assyrian poetry. There are of course the sonnets of Shakespeare and the works of Rossetti, and Byron.

In the end Yusef settles on a verse that he describes as, “predictable, nothing obscure,” as he pushes the gold rimmed glasses up his nose. Strangely, he doesn’t go for the bridge but pushes upward with his fingertips on the glass. He smudges them thoroughly.  

It’s not strange though. Yusef pours hot water to steep tea, forgets to add leaves, and doesn’t discover the error until the water has gone cold. Yusef takes his shoes off in his unairconditioned office on hot summer days and doesn’t remember to put them back on until he’s taken the train to their flat to come see mother.  

The wedding ceremony is held in his cousin’s drawing room. The antique chandelier was polished until it shone like a mirror made of silver. It was lit with one hundred and twenty individual candles; Otabek counted while the maids in black dresses rushed to finish the preparation.  The room smells of the distinct and addictive scent of mildewed old books and sage scented incense. There are ten people in attendance, including the bride, the groom, and Otabek. The affair begins with an Imam who speaks with a thick accent and has a pair of equally thick eyebrows to match.

Yusef kisses mother three times on the cheek and once on the forehead. He’s seen university students be more open with their affection, but it still feels like he’s intruding on something very private. Mother plays Chopin. Yusef reads from the works of Omar Khayyam

_Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,_

_A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou_

_Beside me singing in the Wilderness—_

_And Wilderness is Paradise enow._

Everyone says that they are a good match. Everyone says that father has given his blessing from paradise. How else can one explain the wonderful circumstances under which they were reunited?

Otabek knows there is a grain of truth to all of these statements. He doesn’t mind Yusef. He doesn’t much care for poetry.

* * *

 

When Farida is born a short time later, mother whispers shahada into the sleeping infant’s ear. Yusef accompanies it with his own gift.

_Farida_

_My love_

_Today it begins_

_Our lives shining, new_

_Farida_

Yusef recites the poem in a voice that is barely a whisper and somehow more hushed than his usual speaking tone. Otabek wouldn’t know what it said at all if he hadn’t seen it among a dozen other poems Yusef scribbled on napkins and notepads waiting for her arrival.

When the infant is placed in his arms, Otabek decides that he loves Farida. He doesn’t much care for the cinquain that Yusef wrote for her.

* * *

 

Six months after Otabek returned to Almaty from training in Detroit, he gets a call from someone he never anticipated.

Years later, the white skirt is gone and so are the tears. Kamilya has cut her dark brown hair shorter. Her face is thinner, and her nose is far more crooked than when he saw her last. She’s still beautiful, just not in that kind of girlish way that he remembers. She’s more assertive in the way that she dresses and carries herself. He would almost say that she was striking in the way that her large tawny eyes sharply contrast with the rest of her small delicate face.

Her lips are painted a dark color of plum, and she wears black eyeliner more thickly than mother does.

“It is good to see that you’re doing well.” It’s more meaningful and more sincere than, “it’s good to see you.” Farida has a new partner. They placed tenth at Worlds last year, but Otabek suspects they’ll rise in the ranks.

“Thank you,” she says as they part from a hug that is shockingly warm and sincere. 

“How do you find your new partner?”

“Ivan? He’s good, but he gives Vera a rash, especially when we go to Moscow to train.”

Otabek raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t remember a Vera.

“My girlfriend,” she replies with a laugh.

Otabek had his own suspicions. He tackles the problem as he would any other. He reads voraciously that summer in an attempt to find a concrete solution to the very abstract problem. _Death in Venice,_ and _Cry to Heaven_ , _The City and the Pillar,_ _The Last of the Wine, The Persian Boy,_ and _Numbers._ He found the titles easily at the university library to which he had free roam, he felt unashamed to read them under the date tree, but he felt wildly ashamed whenever mother or Yusef would ask what he was reading.

In mid July he gets a text from Kamilya. “Vera and I are going to a club tonight if that’s your thing. They’ll let you in. Just don’t order a drink and you won’t get carded.”

It’s not “his thing,” but Otabek has heard her talk about the club in city center before. His current methods: reading, and thinking about it until he worried a deep line in his forehead; weren’t working. He decided to try another method. She and Vera seem to like it.

It’s everything Otabek anticipated but somehow worse. Of course the lights are low, and naturally the low lighting is supplemented by all sorts of awful alternatives: colored strobes, neon, and day glow colors. There’s a fog machine too and the thick smoky substance makes his eyes threaten to well up and water. He can’t even hear the music properly anymore. It takes on a dull throb in his temple and resides there without worry or preamble. Others seem to like it, seem to want to dance to it.

Otabek resigns himself to the balcony with Vera for most of the evening. She doesn’t much care for dancing. She would rather sit at one of the scant outdoor tables and smoke for the duration of the night.

Otabek can feel the weight and the burn of eyes upon him. It starts at the base of his spine and drags upward like nails on a chalkboard to the nape of his neck.

“I think you’re getting cruised,” Vera’s lipstick lacquered mouth moves and forms words. Otabek watches the smoke furl and unfurl around them. He hears the words, but he doesn’t quite comprehend.

The other man is tall and lean. His face is thin and he has long black hair that’s haphazardly assembled into a tight bun on the crown of his head. He’s wearing a dark brown corduroy suit jacket with light tan elbow patches. He’s severely over dressed for the summer weather, and Otabek can understand. He hasn’t taken off his jacket all night.

The stranger’s lips are chapped. The stranger tastes like alcohol.

Otabek swallows the lump in his throat. He feels dizzy as if he’s just stood up too quickly from being seated for a long time. He can feel his heart pounding in his ears alongside the drum and the base pulsating in his temple. 

Otabek very much wants whatever it is this man is offering. He can’t accept.

From what he understands it’s normal to have kissed someone by seventeen, not unheard of to have taken a lover. Otabek does not know this man, does not even know his name. Doesn’t know what kind of music he likes, or what kind of books he likes to read. Doesn’t even know if he likes to read at all. The very notion lays whatever impulse he had out flat and kills it.

He pushes the man away with a firm hand. He leaves the club, and doesn’t bother to tell Kamilya and Vera until long after he’s pushed the bike into the carport outside of his apartment complex.

The experience answers some questions for Otabek but opens many others. Otabek chooses not to seek the answer to these subsequent questions. They don’t seem so important now.  

* * *

 

 The questions that cropped up night he went to the club with Kamilya resurface in Barcelona.

It begins with the slip of slender arms around his waist, and it’s punctuated by a warm body against his back.

It continued when Yuri spoke, soft, gruff, and cryptic while simultaneously smiling softly. It seemed as if everything that he said was a secret meant for Otabek and Otabek only.

He watches Yuri’s short program, and by the time his friend is finished with the routine he knows. It grabs him by the gut and pulls him forward in the same way that Yuuri Katsuki pulls his coach around by his tie. Otabek doesn’t quite understand what it is that he’s supposed to do next.   

He doesn’t often consider the possibility of his feelings being returned by Yuri. Yuri is young, and Yuri must grow as a person before he can consider letting someone else in. He doubts it would ever be him.

Occasionally, he does entertain the notion, dangerous as it is. After Worlds where he moves up the podium from last year to silver, he and Yuri’s hands brush together for far too long. His arms feel too hot and too heavy on the bike. Over the summer, he wakes up to text messages from Yuri, and they even Skype from time to time.

He doesn’t so much worry about what mother and Yusef would think. He still finds it highly unlikely that Yuri would ever be anything _more_ than a friend to him. His feelings for Yuri are this nebulous and clandestine thing which he takes great care to hide. The living are of little concern. His conversations with them are tangible and controlled.

But he wonders how his father would feel if he knew that his only son were madly and desperately in love with another man? How would the _best_ Assyrian poetry scholar in the world accept the fact that his son was only the _second_ best skater in the world? Would never carry on the family name?

He wonders if he fixates on these questions because they are superficial. They’re easier to fixate upon instead of deeper more meaningful questions, like why does he constantly seek the approval of a dead man? And, why does he feel as if he has a very real and very legitimate relationship with someone whose face he cannot even recall without aid of a photo? Is it a good thing or a bad thing that he's not satisfied to be  _among_ the best, and refuses to let his mind rest until he is the best? 

He wonders if he fixates on these questions, because an idealized version of his father that does not, and did not exist.  At PyeongChang, he’s the first Kazakh to medal in men’s figure skating. He’s forever regulated to a quick sideline in an obscure Wikipedia page on Kazakh history. The press releases, the handshakes with just enough pressure and weight, meetings with politicians whose name he cannot remember…He feels more symbol than person after the Olympics.

Then he wins gold at Worlds. There’s something strange and bittersweet about it. Why couldn’t he do this a month ago in PyeongChang?

After he takes gold at Worlds, Otabek returns home for awhile. His apartment makes him feel uncomfortable in his own skin. Regardless of what he’s doing, stretching, making dinner, trying to sleep, he feels the sharp pins and needles feeling of anxiety well up at the base of his spine, his stomach, his shoulders.  No Yuri knocking on his door at six in the morning to go for a run. No JJ knocking on his door at night to see if he wants to go out drinking. The absence of these things make him feel like he’s entered a room and forgotten exactly why, except the feeling is constant.

The feeling isn’t exactly abated when he stays with his family, but it’s almost an adequate distraction. He hasn’t had the opportunity to spend so much time with Farida since she was very young. Farida asks him, “What is that Seung-Gil like?”

“Quiet.”

 “And Jean-Jacques Leroy?”

“Tiresome.”

“Where was Kamilya?”

“She didn’t qualify.”

“And Yuri Plisetsky?”

“Well intentioned.”

“Well intentioned? That’s all?” Between mother, himself and Yusef, they could spend a pleasant afternoon together and speak twenty words between them. Farida repaid all the words they’d saved over the years with interest.

“He’s an honorable man,” Otabek supplies. "My closest friend."

By and large, Otabek doesn’t mind the additional noise. It makes him feel like an actual person again, and less like a prop for morning talk shows, newspapers, and photo opportunities.

Otabek continues to search for answers.

Otabek doesn’t remember much about his father. He believes that his voice was quiet and whisper like, although he does not have proof that this was something true true. Could very easily be something that he invented.

He fills in the gaps in his consciousness with bits and pieces left behind. Photos reveal that the hushed and judgmental voices were true. He was a very old man, and his mother was quite young. Otabek cannot find a photo where he does not have hair the color of ash, dark gray at the root and white near the strand.  His dark skin is mottled with liver spots and deeply creased wrinkles. In the photos, he always looks as if he’s been caught by surprise, yet he’s always smiling.

When mother is in these photos, she’s smiling too. It just seems that in these photos, her smile flows freely like water from a tap. She still doesn’t look like she’d laugh. He’s never heard mother laugh, but he knows she can smile. 

There are drawings too. Butcher paper filled from one edge to the other with thick and oily pastel drawings. There are images of the mountains done in purples and blues. There are drawings of Prater park at night. The yellow contrasts against the black of the paper and looks as if it were glowing. The Brandenburg gate, in stark grays and blacks. Pick a landmark in Europe or Asia and his father probably drew it. There is a whole manila folder of places he can only assume are in China. These pages are older, yellowed on the back, and often dated long before he was born, 94, 92, 91, 88, 87, 74.

These items are all packed away into a large trunk kept at the edge of his bed at mother’s house. He used to spend hours looking at the drawings as a child in rapt fascination in the way that only a child can. There was a certain entanglement in the imagination and the fantastic. Otabek saw himself visiting the Yonghe Temple with father in 1990, or the Eifel Tower in 1998.

As an adult, Otabek doesn’t find answers in these drawings.

There are albums, packed away in another crate. In the basement, there is a casual seating area. No antiques, no heirlooms, just a couch, and an armchair, and a large and bulky CRT television that no longer gets signal. Farida likes to drag him down here to build blanket forts between the couches. Whenever Otabek cannot skate, or play piano, or read, after he’s exhausted all other options, he likes to turn on the television and watch the endless snowfall of static from the screen.

Maybe, if his mood is good, he’ll turn on the old and antiquated sound system. He’ll wait for the bursts of static to clear out from the speakers, and then plug in the large immersive headphones. Slowly, carefully, he’ll watch the needle drop.

His father’s albums consist largely of rock and roll albums from the 1960s and 1970s. He knows from drawings, and from journals that his father completed his undergraduate education in America, and this time was influential to him.

_It's not time to make a change_

_Just relax, take it easy_

_You're still young, that's your fault_

_There's so much you have to know_

_Find a girl, settle down_

_If you want you can marry_

_Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy_

_I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy_

_To be calm when you've found something going on_

_But take your time, think a lot_

_Why, think of everything you've got_

_For you will still be here tomorrow_

_But your dreams may not_

Otabek doesn’t much care for music with lyrics. If there’s something to be sung, an opera may be acceptable. Their stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end, unlike many popular songs with lyrics that begin with no context and abruptly end. It’s much like poetry. Despite not caring for them much, he’s listened to each album countless times.

Of course the biggest evidence left behind which help Otabek understand what kind of man his father was are the books. Otabek inherited his father’s library. They were moved from the University office, from flats scattered across Europe, and all of theme were assembled neatly in a room directly above his own in the palace of a house.  No matter if he was nine or nineteen, Yusef always asked permission before he borrowed a book.

For a very long time, Otabek pretended that he enjoyed Tolstoy…Anna Karenina simply because it was an elegant story. He enjoyed the political intrigue. He enjoyed a complex and tragic story of love. By the time he is eighteen, he accepts the fact that perhaps he enjoys the works so thoroughly is because towards the end of his life, father diverged from poetry.  Took a heated interest in Tolstoy. He’s read the research monographs which are typed on thick yellowed paper in a font that is sharp and severe in a way that only a typewriter can produce. The pages are stained with coffee.

There’s a scene in the first arc of _Anna Karenina._ Anna has first arrived in Moscow. As Vronsky and Anna lay eyes upon each other for the first time, an innocent railman is killed in a horrific accident in which he falls in front of a train. Anna is fearful. Vronsky is infatuated

Otabek can only liken his newfound love for Yuri Plisetsky from both the perspective of Anna and Vronsky.

Would his father be disappointed that his first pangs of love produce these feelings?

One afternoon, his mother asks him to come into her study. Unlike the formal music room, there is no _real_ piano here. There is only a large electric Yamaha keyboard on a slender stand, a few shelves of books, and a contemporary style desk with a cracked marble top.

Otabek believes that it might have come with them from Europe. He can’t be sure.

“Otabek, you’re the only person I know who could be openly proclaimed the best in the world and still doubt his worth.”

At this point in his life, Otabek has been beaten by many of his mother’s blunt instruments. There are of course questions, such as the one he’d just been asked. There are statements, “you’re getting a lot of media attention lately. Not for your skating,” which he’d been informed last year after Marseilles.  And most deadly of all, the question that’s posed as a statement to which there is no response.

She gives him this blow next. “You’re seeking answers where they cannot be found.”

Otabek knows that if he rocks on the balls of his heels his mother will know how truly anxious he is in that moment. He palms an old globe that rests heavy in a stand instead. He lets his fingers turn the sphere from North America, slowly to Europe and then back to Asia. He brushes his fingers purposefully over Almaty and the raised mountain ranges on the globe.

Mother opens the drawer on her desk. From the cherry wood panels, she removes a memo pad with a simple black and white cover. “I do not know if these will settle your mind. I used to believe they were written for me.”

She hands him the book. Otabek accepts. He thumbs carefully through the pages. The writing style matches the faint pencil scratch in the margins of his copy of _Anna Karenina,_ and the writing on the back of the oil pastel drawings.

“But now that I see you,” her voice hitches in a near silent breath that others would miss if they hadn’t spent a lifetime detecting it. “Perhaps I was selfish in my assumption.”

Otabek reads.

_You never quite cared, for what I loved most_

_A parallel line_

_A strong writ verse_

_I hope someday, to meet your most_

“I believe perhaps, you were the true intended audience.”

Otabek has never much cared for poetry.

Otabek reads the entire notebook in twenty minutes. He still can’t say that he cares for poetry.

* * *

Otabek doesn’t sleep much these days. He wanders through the house until he finds a flat surface that isn’t uncomfortable: a sofa, a carpeted floor, an armchair, a guest bedroom. Rarely, if ever his own bedroom. He spent the rest of the day wandering around the house and the yard with the memo book in hand. He reads its contents over and over again, as if each turn of the page grants him permission.

_Meet me ‘neath the old date tree_

_We’ll of everything, nothing, have tea_

To be Otabek Altin, more than Kazakhstan’s hero.

To be Otabek Altin, more than the son of Alibek Altin.

To be Otabek Altin, more than a medal which demarks a certain point in time, and little else about his worth as a person.

For the first time in months, it feels like Otabek has some semblance of clarity. He likens it to someone dunking his head in ice water, or having your ears pop after a long and turbulent flight.

It’s well after midnight. He’s dressed in his pajamas, and he takes great care to miss the squeaky board on the stairs that lead up to his room. He pads against the carpet and avoids hardwood floors in the house.

Otabek rocks up on the balls of his feet to get to the top shelf in his closet. He retrieves a wooden cigar box with bright red and green letters stamped on the top that read _Havana’s Finest_. Inside was inlayed with soft green velour. Each of his medals, from juniors til now, were tucked inside. Carefully, and with great consideration, he selects his first Four Continents gold. It’s cheating. It doesn’t show that he’s the best in the world like his Worlds gold, or even _among_ the best in the entire world like his Olympic medal. But, he has another Worlds gold. He can spare one.  

Next, he goes to the utility closet that’s tucked away on the main floor. He retrieves a hammer and tack.

Otabek feels a particular shade of absurd as he tacks the tears the fabric strand from the medal. There’s the very real and very distinct possibility that mother will not be pleased when she comes out to the garden and discovers it there.  He taps with the hammer once, twice, three times until the bark gives way and the nail is deeply buried into the tree.

Despite it only being may, it is quite hot outside. The cicadas have come out of their burrows to molt and to moan.  The grass tickles against the bottoms of Otabek’s feet and itches when it grazes against his ankles. Maybe he should’ve bothered with shoes.

Otabek’s breath comes in short bursts although he hasn’t done anything particularly strenuous. He can feel the faint drip damp feeling of a cold sweat breaking out on his back. He places a hand against the bark of the tree and leans his weight into it.

He’s acutely aware of the fact that he’s alone, and the corners of his eyes are burning. He doesn’t let a single tear fall because he feels the furthest thing from sadness now.

“I’m the best figure skater in the world right now,” but his voice is barely a whisper. He’s never dared to say such things out loud, even if they were by definition true. “Except,” he worries the bottom of his lip with his teeth. It’s complicated, to explain yourself to someone who already has all of your secrets collected and tucked away so that no one can find them. “A lot of the attention is still on Seung-Gil Lee, as he took gold in PyeongChang,” he explains. “I mind that he has the gold. I can’t say that I mind that he has the attention.”

Otabek speaks quickly, he can feel with each word he utters his wherewithal drying up. “I’m in love with a man. Yuri Plisetsky.” Otabek expected to feel as if a great weight had been lifted off of his chest when he finally acknowledged it, spoke it out loud and made it tangible and unretractable.  “He doesn’t know it yet, but…He is also a dear friend. I’d like it if you’d some day met.” Instead, he feels as he does at the beginning of the new season: overwhelmed by new choreography, incensed to accomplish his goals.

The next day, Otabek does little more than read out by the tree and enjoy the feeling of marble beneath his still bare feet. He loves the classics, but he needs to keep up on contemporary books too. He reads _Homegoing_ in one go, and then begins _The Association of Small Bombs._ He tries not to steal furtive glances at the tangible evidence of his raw and unhinged emotion pinned to the tree.

The medal is not the only distraction.

His phone buzzes constantly, with photos and texts. Yuri with wisteria in his hair. Yuri dancing with Yuuri Katsuki. Today is Viktor Nikiforov and Yuri Katsuki’s wedding.

“You should’ve agreed to be my date. We could’ve rented a motorcycle and torn out of here when things got too cheesy.” Otabek drops his phone when he reads the screen. With shaky hands he picks it back up. Otabek is not a man to assume, or invest in false hope, but he knows an opportunity when he sees one.

“Come to Almaty instead. It’s quiet here.”

 

 

 


	2. Heart and Soul

Yuri arrived in Almaty at 4:30 PM local time, which meant that he missed Otabek’s procedure by several hours. Time was never on their side, and so the procedure was scheduled for two days after the expo at worlds. This would allow Otabek the maximum amount of time to heal for next season. This _also_ meant that Yuri had very little time to plan. It was nigh impossible to drop everything and get to Almaty on time when he’d just cinched the title of world champion and had to do all of those little irksome things that world champions were expected to do.

Even though he certainly tried. Yuri paid an obscene amount of money to get to St. Petersburg with Otabek only to be unable to buy a connecting flight to Almaty. Otabek was forced to leave him cursing and sputtering at the customs line.

 Yuri brought with him a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty, all of which he knew he had to dispel at some point between deplaning and baggage claim.  

He told himself over and over that meniscus repair was an extra routine surgery, one that Viktor had done _several_ times by retirement. Yet and still, he couldn’t abate the strange pins and needles feeling of excess energy that caused him to shake and twitch in off beat movements to the music that he constantly piped through his earbuds.

On his layover he got a text from an international number that said, “All is well.” He assumed that this was about Otabek.

Yuri wasn’t expecting Otabek’s mother to pick him up at the terminal. She waited in baggage claim with a leather bound book in her lap.

He’d just kind of assumed that if there was ever a moment where he’d be met by someone in a black hat and a sign that said, “Mr. Plisetsky,” this would be the time. Kind of a shame, he never got that kind of treatment even as the best skater in the world. Yakov always went with him, or met him at the airport.

Yuri quickly pushed the notion from his head as he tried to interpret _why_ Mrs. Ibrayev met him directly. Surely, if something had happened to Otabek, she wouldn’t have come to get him directly because she’d need to be there. At the same time, why would she come for the sake of coming for him? Yuri tries to force his heartrate back down. As fast as the paranoid thoughts fly, so does the gruff and angry interior voice that tells him he’s approaching Katsudon-Nikiforov levels of histrionic.

“Yuri Plisetsky.” She says his name _before_ she closes her book and looks to him as if she can somehow _feel_ his presence. She rises to greet him, but does not shake his hand. “It’s good to see you again. I don’t meant to alarm you. Otabek is resting at home, and I thought I’d send for you myself,” she explains.

“Th-thanks,” he stammers out.

After putting his bags in the trunk of the car, Yuri climbs into the passenger’s seat and all but sinks into the plush leather seat. He’s quite used to flying business class by now. He always pays extra for the green car if has to take the Shinkansen in Japan. Otabek’s bike is always spotless, and in perfect working order. Cars still represent one area of transportation that he has not reconciled to his life of fame and luxury.

Cars will forever and always be grandpa’s tin can on wheels. The floor boards are rusted through, and he can remember staring down at the road as it passed by through the holes until grandpa tacked down some plywood _over_ the crumbling metal frame. The seats have their stuffing falling out, and are hastily resewn together.

Watching the road pass by over the long nose of Mrs. Ibrayev’s Mercedes is nothing short of mesmerizing. The yellow lines intersect with the forked lines of the hood ornament. Yuri crosses and uncrosses his eyes multiple times staring at it.

“You arrived here quickly.” she supplies after quite some time on the road. It’s a statement and a question at the same time. “Beka had interviews for days.”

“Yeah, well I needed to be here I guess,” he replies in a tone that’s too terse and too angry for the situation.

They don’t speak for the rest of the car ride. Yuri knows that if he were in the car with Otabek, the silence between them would be comfortable, even with his gruffness and the tension. He wonders what he’s _supposed_ to feel with this silence with Mrs. Ibrayev.

“Otabek,” Yuri whispers into his ear. “Wake the fuck up.” He shouldn’t. He really fucking shouldn’t, but he can’t help it. It’s not enough to watch the soft rise and fall of Otabek’s chest as he sleeps. It’s not enough to watch his face, soft and surprisingly tensionless. In fact, it’s fucking creepy. If Otabek is awake, even if just for a moment he can justify his nauseating behavior.

Yuri kisses the shell of his ear softly, and pulls back to watch his partner’s eyes flutter open softly.

Otabek stares at him with squinted eyes and purses his lips as if he wants to speak. He raises an arm from out underneath the sheet, and waves at Yuri.

Yuri climbs into the bed with Otabek, wriggles his way underneath the sheet, and throws an arm across him. “How do you feel?”

“Sore,” he says in a voice that’s gruff and trying to find itself.

Yuri runs his hand up and down Otabek’s torso from his hip to his shoulder. Feeling him, just feeling him and holding him close feels _so_ fucking good.

Worlds, two international flights…It takes absolutely no time at all for him to realize that he’s exhausted. He’s with Otabek, and the warmth between them is addictive.

Yuri wakes up to the almost frightening sight of Mrs. Ibrayev standing over them. She didn’t have to say anything. The intensity of her stare alone willed him awake. She’s nothing but jet black eyeliner and a hot coal stare that would be filled with emotion if it were any other person…The Altin-Ibrayevs are a special case. Nothing but intensity without valence. Her hand is soft on his shoulder. “We’re having dinner. Would you like something to eat?”

Otabek stirs beside him and buries his face into Yuri’s long hair before he catches sight of his mother.

Yuri doesn’t quite know what to do.

Otabek looks over, and immediately covers his eyes with his hand in shame, and it’s all he needs to know.

“You should try to eat something too Otabek. It’s not good to have your medication without it.” Mrs. Ibrayev gestures to several orange bottles with white caps on the night stand. “Please help him with that.”

After dinner, Yuri returns to the bedroom where he placed his luggage to get his toiletries and fresh clothes. Farida had politely told him that he stank of airport, and that he needed a bath.

Of course this was over dinner, and Mrs. Ibrayev’s eyebrows migrated up into her enormous widow’s peak.

Yuri simply asked what airport smelled like.

“Cinnabon, bathroom disinfectant, and day old pizza,” she said in a matter of fact tone.

Yuri grabbed his shirt by the collar, pulled it up over his nose, and took a huge whiff. He cannot deny the accuracy of that statement.

Yuri’s been in Otabek’s room at his mother’s house before. It’s on the second floor. The window faces the courtyard, and if you look out the window you can see Mrs. Ibrayev’s rose garden from it. It’s filled with books, and cigar boxes, and all sorts of chunks of amethyst, rose quartz, fool’s gold, and turquoise.  There are model airplanes that are far older than Otabek himself which hang from the ceiling. They have worn paint, and nicotine yellowed wings made of canvas.

The room his luggage is in, and Otabek’s pills are in, is on the first floor. The window faces the circle driveway. The room is enormous, and contains two full sized beds which are separated only by a small end table. The duvets are a rust color, and match the gold tones of the carpet.

 “Should I sleep in the other bed?” He asks after his bath. He lingers between the two beds with a towel draped over his hair.

Otabek looks at him like he’s grown another head.

Yuri rolls his eyes. He thought it was a pretty valid fucking question. “Don’t get pissy. I don’t want to kick you in your sleep.” Yuri sits on the edge of the untouched bed and stares intently at Otabek, waiting for an answer.

Otabek doesn’t say anything right away. He picks some lint off of his shirt as if he’s disinterested, and rifles through a stack of paperbacks that are on the nightstand in between the beds. “Do you know who normally stays in this room?”

“Who?” Cryptic Otabek is best countered by direct Yuri.

“My great aunt and uncle who haven’t shared the same bed in thirty years. One here,” he pats the mattress that he sits on. “One there,” he points to the other bed. “Because my uncle has to sleep sitting up…My cousin and her partner stay here, but only when my mother’s sister is with them.”  Otabek looks to the space beside him on the bed.

Yuri takes it as a gesture to sit beside him, and so he scrambles over to the other bed.

“She’s very upset they haven’t married yet, despite living together for nine years. Always wants them in separate rooms. Mother has them stay in here.”

“So it’s like, they “sleep” in different beds,” Yuri supplies. Yuri takes Otabek’s forearm across his lap. Slowly, he runs a featherlight gaze down the soft skin of Otabek’s inner arm. Yuri doesn’t understand the full extent of whatever anxiety lurks beyond Otabek’s meandering explanation of family visitation practices, but he can feel them slowly rise to the surface as they talk. “But not really.”

“Right,” Otabek supplies.

Yuri very suddenly realizes he’s in over his head.  Otabek deals with forced vulnerability in the same way he deals with losing, that is to say with a rice paper thin façade that threatens to tear at the seam in a moment’s notice. He knows this because he’s the same way. He can’t hide the crutches and the brace and the medication. He can’t really _deny_ that they were definitely sharing the same bed. Yuri doesn’t believe that this is an issue of being “out.” Possibly more of an issue of, “I need this person, possibly more than I need you,” and Otabek isn’t exactly a fan of things like needing or dependency.

Yuri understands that there’s nuance there, but it’s far too complex for him to truly see.

Yuri once read the notes in the margins of some of Otabek’s favorite books. They filled the margins and spilled over the type. There were bits of notebook paper wedged inside alongside pages of honest to god manuscripts from literary journals. Otabek’s family was that level of complexity. Analysis of Tolstoy, but wrapped in a algebra equation, and ejected into a theory.

So who fucking knew. Pile that onto the small mountain of, “things they should’ve fucking talked about, but fucking whoops.”

“I think it’s cause this is the only bedroom on the ground floor.”

Otabek grabs his hand in-between both of his own. “Please sleep with me,” his voice is barely a whisper.

* * *

The day immediately following his procedure, Otabek stays thoroughly doped up. Yuri sees to that, as he’s _incredibly_ cranky when he’s in pain. It’s in the strange and insufferable kind of prissiness that _only_ Otabek can conjure.

“Would you um…Would you mind getting a different one?”

“You said you wanted to read _The Secret Garden._ ” Yuri nudges the book towards him. “So here it is.”

“No, I mean….” Otabek’s brain, hazy with medication uses more words than he needs. It would be endearing if it didn’t piss him off. “I want the one with the Adine Kirnberg font….the illustrated edition.”

“Oh, my fucking god.”

“I _know_ it’s upstairs Yuri.”

“Why do you even want this?” He climbs back into bed with Otabek after double checking that it is the correct edition.

“My mother used to read it to me when I felt sick.”

“Oh,” Yuri supplies. So Otabek fucking Altin, “look only toward the future,” can get fucking nostalgic too. “For me it was _The Velveteen Rabbit.”_

“We have that,” Otabek supplies. He’s sitting propped up into the pillows. He leans into Yuri’s shoulder and inhales deeply. “Read that one next.”

“No fucking way. I’ll cry like a baby.”

“Hm,” Otabek plucks the book from his hands.

“Hey! I thought your sick ass wanted me to read to _you._ ” He’s lucky that he’s cute really.

“I do, I just have to,” Otabek smooths the book out over the duvet cover. He’s smiling in a way that makes him want to fucking bolt. Nothing good ever happens when Otabek gives him a panty melting half smile and head cock. “When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression.” Otabek’s lip quivers like he’s trying not to laugh.

Otabek’s laughter breaks like an overburdened dam. I tiny trickle, a thunderous roar.

“Who does that sound like Yuri?”

“We’re done here Altin.” Yuri gets up from the bed, but Otabek pulls playfully at his arm. “We had a good run though. Almost a year.”

Otabek flashes him the pages of the book. There’s a lithograph of a girl with long blonde hair in a braid. Her eyes are painted in an emerald shade of green. “Look, there’s an illustration too.”

* * *

There’s a point after a competition, where everything just kind of drops. Usually right before the expo. His limbs get heavy, and doing anything other than laying, or sleeping is arduous. Something as simple as ordering room service can take hours during this time. After World’s last year, he slept for 18 hours straight and almost missed his return flight home.

Without anyone in Almaty to tell him what to do, it extends to this weird kind of place. Yuri spends the first few days with Otabek doing little more than sleeping or occasionally reading. By the fourth day, his body itches at hem to get out and to do _something_ but he isn’t quite sure what.

For better or for worse, Farida fills in the gaps where skating, ballet, and a more conscious, less high maintenance Otabek would be otherwise.  

Yuri doesn’t seek out her company so much as he is summoned without warning. Which is totally in line with the fucking strange, blunt yet obtuse nature of this fucking family.

It’s just that Mrs. Ibrayev takes Otabek to his physical therapy, and there’s no reason to go. He doesn’t want to fucking hover, he’d hate it if Otabek did that to him.

It’s just that, there’s a big fucking commotion from somewhere upstairs, and it _just_ so happens to be the music room.

“Good you’re here now,” she says without even looking at him up over the piano.

“Yeah, what?” Yuri fishes his phone out of his pocket. It’s 8:30 in the morning, and he’d normally be up for several hours already. Except, it’s _so_ easy to let things fall apart when no one is there to hound him into a false sense of normalcy.  

“Okay, so I’m going to show you something good.” Farida flips through several yellowed pages of sheet music. They’re tattered and torn on the edges, and look grossly out of place in a home where everything else is immaculate.

“You know your brother says that a lot. It never goes well.”

“Well my brother _was_ playing with me this morning, and then he had to leave. So you’ll do I guess.”  Farida pats the black lacquer seat beneath her. “Sit.”

Yuri complies and tries _not_ to think about how Otabek isn’t supposed to be going up and down stairs.

“Your task is simple.” Her hand collides with a single note “C,” then another “A,” then another “F, and G”. She locks eyes with him, and it’s that same kind of misplaced seriousness that Otabek whips out at a moment’s notice. “Got it?”

Yuri misses half of the notes. “Ah, shit.” His hands leave the keys and fly up over his mouth when he realizes what he’s done.

“It’s fine,” Farida chirps. “Kat says it all the time.” Yuri silently tries to figure out who the fuck Kat is. There’s the maid Uttara, and the other maid, Natasha, and the other maid who wears glasses, and the gardener who is a dude, so why would his name be Kat…Kat...Oh! Katherine, Farida’s Au Pair who had a flat broad nose. Spoke German _and_ French and came from Switzerland.

“Again,” she orders.

“Why?”

With a single hand Farida goes up and down the keys. It’s a familiar tune, one he’s heard in movies and television shows, but can never name.

“Okay after me.” She shows him the notes again, and Yuri thinks he remembers them. “Just that over and over.

Yuri plays the notes as instructed at the same pace.

 _Dun dun dun_ Yuri knows the song. For the life of him, can’t place it.

“You know it?”

“Not really.”

Farida throws her head back and laughs. She doesn’t quit playing, so neither does he. “Heart and soul. I fell in love with you. Heart and soul. I fell in love with you.” Her even voice drops to barely a whisper. “Madly….”

Fucking weirdo.

When he first met Otabek, he thought that the other man was from another planet.  This was only solidified last summer when he immersed himself in Otabek’s strange and over simplistic existence where words are rationed carefully, and everything involves a certain amount of purposiveness to the point of burden.

Then Yuri met Otabek’s parents. Things became a _lot_ clearer.

“Otabek says you’re going to St. Petersburg after this.”

“Yeah, when he can do more than sleep and hobble.”

“Otabek says you speak Japanese.

“Yeah. I go there a lot.”

Which begged the question, what fucking planet did Farida come from? She asks him all sorts of questions, many of which are rhetorical and have no real answer. She speaks over him when he’s trying to formulate a response, and he’s said something that sends her on a tangent. She doesn’t even seem to be bothered when her mother’s eyes bore into her with laser precision that makes Yuri shudder, even when it’s not directed at him.

“Otabek says you’re going there too.” Her voice is accusatory, like you can’t go to Russia _and_ Japan.

“Yeah, at the end of the summer.”

“I want to go to Japan too.”

“Kay.”

“Cause you know why?”

Yuri doesn’t say anything in response. The kid’s still jamming on keys, and from the glares she’s shooting him, she expects him to keep going.

“Cause _Yokai Watch_.”

Yuri finds that hard to believe. It’s plausible sure, but he hasn’t seen a television, computer, or videogame console since he’s been here. Granted, he still gets lost on his way from the bedroom to the kitchen sometimes. Perhaps there’s _some_ connection to the outside world other than Yusef’s morning paper and Mrs. Ibrayev’s Mercedes. “Gross,” he lets the words roll off his tongue without thinking about it.

“Not gross,” she corrects simply without a hint of annoyance. “They have real Poke Centers too.”

“Yeah, I’ve been to the one in Odaiba. It’s a shi-“ he cuts himself off before he says, “shithole,” which is the accurate descriptor. He went there with Yuuko and the Nishigori brats _once_ and wanted to punch so many things.

“It is not.” She doesn’t know that. She’s never been there. “Otabek said _we_ could go there someday.”

Yuri only feels it for a split second. Otabek’s stare is unapologetic and heavy. Mrs. Ibrayev’s is lighter, but smothering like a plastic bag. Farida’s is quick and precise, like a sniper or the blow of a featherweight prize fighter. There’s something in the way she says _we._ Like there was something there that he should have known.

“Wow you’re bad at this,” she changes subject with a rapid fire alacrity that he’s still getting accustomed to.

Yuri looks down at the keys and grits his teeth. “I can’t play and talk at the same time.” He pounds the four notes out in rapid succession on the keyboard. “Look.”

Yuri wants to get up, and do anything else, but he _has_ nothing else to do. He sits and plays the same four pathetic notes over and over again until he has them memorized.

* * *

“What is it that you need?”

His pulse rate to return to fucking normal, because soft footed, whisper talking Yusef fucking snuck up on him near midnight when he _thought_ everyone was in bed.

He should’ve expected this by now. Yusef guards the library with a watchful eye that’s unmatched. One afternoon Farida stomped in with a fistful of hard candies and an open bottle of juice. Yusef raised his voice at her so that it was _almost_ audible to the human ear, and patiently reminded her that food was not allowed with texts.

It was fucking wild.

Yuri looks up and down the shelves of books that are taller than him and wrap around the room. “He wants some copy of _Anna_ ,” him and that hag are on real fucking personal basis these days.

“Oh,” Yusef’s face lights up.  “He must not have the copy he likes. The one with the little gold letters.”

Little.

Gold.

Letters.

Yuri really is going to have a heart attack, and the sad part was, Yusef was so fucking nice and so fucking gentle that no one is ever going to know that he brutally murdered Yuri in his home late one April evening.

The copy that Yuri had gotten Otabek for his birthday had of course been embossed with “little gold letters,” and those little gold letters read in a tight serif font, “To Otabek, Love always, Yuri”

Yuri turns borscht fucking red at the realization that _somehow_ Yusef fucking knew about that. “It’s um, it’s got this cover that’s like an oil painting,” Yuri chokes over his words, “And he said it’s got a plastic cover on it like it’s um, from a library.”

“Ah,” Yusef goes over to a far shelf and rapidly begins touching the spines of a number of books. “He wants the unrevised English translation by Garnett.”

“Weird,” Yuri has to purposefully bite the “fucking” off the front of the sentence, even though it would roll off the tongue so well in this situation.

“Well you see,” as if Yusef believes that although it _is_ fucking weird, there’s logic behind it. “In _this_ version, it’s never explicitly stated that the elaborate coif that Kitty wears to the ball is not her own hair. There are several passages that are highly paraphrased, such as the scene where-“

Yuri crosses and uncrosses his eyes as he stares at the book in Yusef’s hand. He’s sort of moving it about in a half wave. The sad part is, is that he’s going to have to listen to Otabek go through all of this again. Because he _was_ about to conversationally, when he suggested that Yuri just go _get_ the offending copy so he could _show_ him.

He’s got to get him ambulatory. As much as he loves him, it’s killing him. Just a little bit.

“In short, many of the more subtle nuances are lost in the early English translations and in my opinion, and Otabek’s too, have not been replicated. If you see Alibek’s monograph in _Compative Critical Studies_ 2001, you’ll find these points elaborated upon more completely.”

It goes silent between them for a moment. Yuri wonders _when_ Yusef is going to turn over the book.

“But I was never the Tolstoy scholar,” Yusef says softly. “You like Tolstoy?”

Yusef breaks eye contact and stares intently at the forest green, leaf patterned, Berber carpet. It’s something he does when Farida’s said something that by Altin-Ibrayev standards is _obscene._ This intent stare at the carpet is usually done while Darya fixates her murder face onto her youngest offspring.

Does Yusef feel like he’s being too forward?

“I like-“ Yuri tries to imagine if it were Otabek asking the question. How would he respond? More importantly, how would Otabek want him to respond to Yusef right now? “I tolerate Tolstoy,” he says finally. “Because it is important to Otabek.” Yuri wants to say more but his mouth draws together into a tense and firm line before he can elaborate.

Maybe it’s unneeded. Otabek wouldn’t elaborate. Otabek would not need elaboration.

Yusef hands him the book.

Yuri wraps his fingers around slightly sticky plastic laminated cover of the book.

In the instant that Yuri’s fingers hit the book, their eyes meet once more.

This is new. He’s never felt Yusef’s iteration before. At Viktor and Yuuri’s wedding, Viktor looked at him after he’d changed into his groomsman’s suit. His eyes were soft and heavy with affection. Yet, the undeniable pressure of scrutiny was there. It settled in multiple places: the hollow of his throat where the tie was knotted, his pulse points where he’d scrunched up the sleeves of his shirt trying to get his cufflinks on, and the lapels of his suit, which he’d been fussing with for quite some time. Viktor had demanded perfection, and adjusted him accordingly.

Yusef’s stare feels eerily similar.

Yuri hopes that he passes muster.

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. Ibrayev leave him a note on the refrigerator each morning. It’s a fucking miracle that he found the first one. There’s no reason to go to the same room in this house more than once, and no reason to do anything yourself. Yuri knows that the meals they eat at night aren’t prepared by either of Otabek’s parents, and this is made clear when he emerges from the bedroom and a he passes by two of the maids, Natasha and Uttara on his way to the kitchen. Luckily getting him and Otabek breakfast is his job, so he sees the notes.

_Y,_

_It will just be you and O at home today. Please ensure O takes his medication. That aside, go where you’d like, and do what you’d like._

_D & Y  _

There’s two 20,000 tenge notes clipped to the note which is hung on the refrigerator, and Yuri wonders what the fuck he’s supposed to do with the money. Order in? Tip the home staff?

Yuri takes the note down to signal that he’s read it, but leaves the money.

He grabs a couple of bananas off of the counter, and some yogurt from the fridge. Yuri slices the bananas, places them in a bowl with yogurt, and manages to find some granola in the cupboard too. They don’t keep it in the normal places you keep granola, like in a box on top of the fridge. It’s in a pantry off the kitchen.

Coffee will have to wait until Otabek is fully awake. There’s nothing resembling a coffee maker that he can see in the kitchen. He can’t find tea either, and the staff has disappeared so he can’t ask for help.

As he works, Yuri steals glances out of the window. It looks like it’s going to be nice. Maybe between Vicodin naps he can get Otabek on the crutches and outside, even just for a little bit.

Yuri had wanted them to just sit on the simple patio furniture just off the kitchen door. But Otabek did that where his nostrils flared for a half second and simply said, “this is Yusef’s smoking area,” like it meant that they were banned from the table.

Internally, Yuri called bullshit. He doesn’t think he’s ever spoken to the guy without him _offering_ him something. A piece of cinnamon candy, a little pocket money, more rice at dinner, help with finding a specific edition of a text. Externally, he doesn’t question it. Otabek is shockingly fast on crutches, and he knows to some extent that the date tree holds some kind of mystic fucking powers over him.

Last summer they spent entire fucking Sunday afternoons underneath the tree. Otabek would read, Yuri would start twitter fights with the Nishigori triplets until he got bored and asked Otabek to stand on his feet while he did sit ups. Then, they’d switch and Yuri would stand on his feet.

Not to mention the 24 karat eyesore, which Otabek has tried to explain in a number of ways and failed fantastically to articulate each time. Yuri doesn’t bother with it. Each iteration becomes more clear. “I needed to make a statement,” has slowly morphed into, “I felt a great deal of pressure,” and “this tree is important to me and my father.” He knows a satisfying explanation will come in time.

 “What’ll we do first?” Otabek asks when he hefts himself downward onto the marble bench that encircles the trunk of the tree. “When we get to St. Petersburg?”

Yuri takes his crutches and props them up against another nearby tree so that they’re out of the way.

“Customs,” Yuri smirks. It’s still early and so the noonday sun hasn’t edged out the morning chill. He’s got a dark green pull over on that rides high on his forearm and threatens to leave angry little red lines on his skin. It must be Otabek’s. “But seriously? We’ll need to get groceries. I haven’t cooked anything since like, a month before worlds. There’s this little produce market.” Yuri cracks open the diet coke that he brought with him from the kitchen.

“Can I have one?” Otabek squints at him as he speaks, like he knows _just_ how trying the question is.

“You said you didn’t want one.” Yuri sips the little bit of liquid that spills out over the top from the rim of the can. “Drink some of mine.” Yuri offers him the can, but knows where the conversation is going.

Otabek parts mouth a little. It’s the new, more horizontally bound version of rocking on the bottoms of his feet. “The sweetener.”

“I can’t fucking believe this.” It’s a lie. He can.  “You’re a real hassle,” but he’s already turning on his heel to go back to the house.

“You don’t even know what I want.” Otabek calls to his back.

“You’ll get what I bring you.”

“You’re a poor nurse, Yuri.”

Otabek is pleased with Yuri’s choice of pink lemonade for him. Otabek reads _I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream to_ him, and then other short stories by the author. As Otabek reads, Yuri traces the cool metal against bark with his fingers. It’s not lost on him the way Otabek steals furtive glances of his hand and the medal in between paragraphs. 

Yuri decides he likes _Big Sam was my Friend_ the very best.

Otabek tastes like pink lemonade. Otabek checks his watch in-between kisses.

Yuri _doesn’t_ have everyone’s schedules figured out completely, but he knows that sometimes his parents come home at lunch, inevitably because Yusef forgot something important for his classes…like exam copies.

“Look,” Yuri puts a firm hand on his shoulder and pushes him away. His hand smooths over the red and white fabric of his team Russia sweatshirt he purposefully left in Otabek’s dresser last summer. Otabek looks good in it, even if it’s a little long in the arms and across the chest. “I get it.”

Otabek shoots him a look that insinuates that he does _not_ get it, and to an extent that’s true. Grandpa’s never picked Otabek up at the airport, never seen them cuddling… He _doesn’t_ understand why it’s okay for Otabek to walk around in a pullover that all but _literally_ screams that they’re together, but somehow a kiss when no one is home is too much.

Yuri supposes he’ll find out first hand next month when they go to Moscow.

“Yura we could be married ten years and I’d still feel this way.” Otabek leans into him in a half nuzzle that completely fucking negates what he just said. Yuri halts him with a firm hand to his chest.

“I said I fucking got it Altin.”

* * *

“As you all know,” Farida says as she slaps several sheets of music onto the stand. The notes are handwritten on the staff. Yuri’s seen that before. Mrs. Ibrayev writes tight crisp notes. These are sloppy, and written in what looks to be erasable pen. There are large smudges on the pages. “I’ve assembled you all here today because I have a composed my first trio.”

“We didn’t know that, thanks,” Yuri says between gritted teeth. It has nothing to do with the fact that the three of them, Yuri, Otabek, and Farida are wedged together on the single piano bench and he’s sitting with one ass on and one ass off because fucking maestro has got to have ample room, and Otabek has got to be firmly planted too.

“Ah Farida?” Otabek’s voice is patient and calm like always. “You haven’t specified. Base or treble.”

“Oh damn!” She squeaks. Yuri catches a brief glimpse of her eyes going wide as dinner plates before Otabek’s obscuring his view and giving him that _special_ kind of thousand yard stare that he keeps locked in the metaphorical gun safe for special occasions and emergencies.

“You should hear all the other awful stuff I’ve taught her.”

Otabek shakes his head dismissively. “So base or treble?”

“Treble, duh.” Farida’s hands slip out of awkwardly too long sleeves and hover over the piano. “This one. This one that I could play when I was a baby. That’s Yuri’s part.”

“I’ll have you know that I was on the ice when I was-“

Otabek stiffens beside him and puts his hand between them to silence him.

Fuck.

Double fuck.

Mega fuck.

He just got the mother fucking hand. To the face. Like he’s JJ or something. Like he hasn’t been taking care of Otabek’s ass for the past week and a half. Like he hasn’t been teasing Farida relentlessly for quite some time now.

“Show him his notes Beka.” Farida says in an attempt to diffuse the situation.

Otabek does. It’s a five note chord that’s easy to remember. 

Otabek’s piece is quite complicated requiring several octaves. Farida’s part is somewhere in between in number of notes and complexity of sound.

It doesn’t sound particularly good, even though he’s almost certain he’s doing all of his notes properly. Knows for damn sure Otabek and Farida are hitting theirs.

“It sounded better in my head,” Farida confirms when they stagger to the end of the piece. He only knows this because they stop playing, and after a few discordant notes, he stops playing too.

“Well,” Otabek turns from side to side on the cramped seat. “When was the last time you heard a trio with three piano parts?”

It goes silent between all of them for a long while.

“Never,” she confesses.

“This part you gave Yuri would suit maybe, percussion if you retooled it.”

“Maybe…” her voice trails off. “Hey,” Farida elbows Otabek, which pushes him into Yuri. “That’s for Yuri…Pass it on.”

Otabek elbows him in the side on his sister’s behalf.

“Hey Yuri. Show him the thing,” there’s an upward lilt of playful insistence in her voice.

“What thing?” Yuri leans back on the bench to look at her. It’s bad enough he had to play…whatever the fuck they just played.

“You know…” her eyes are wide, like she just got caught swearing. “Dun, dun duh,”

If the carpet in the music room is a nice shade of Shinto shrine vermillion, then Yuri’s face certainly matches it. To make matters worse, it’s finally fucking happening.

Otabek’s looking at him.

Farida’s looking at him.

And he can feel something far more pointed and precise too…

“Farida,” a soft voice calls from behind them. Yuri turns, it’s Darya. “It’s time for bed.”

“Really?” The girl slides off of the piano bench. Otabek scoots over in order to allow Yuri more space on the bench. “I wanted Yuri to show him!” She all but stomps out of the room.

“Yes, but it’s time for bed,” Mrs. Ibrayev insists. She places a hand on Farida’s shoulder and urges her out of the room.

“Night.” Otabek calls after her.

“Good night Beka. Night Yuri,” She calls as she walks down the hall.

Yuri lets out a sharp exhale. In the back of his mind, he’d always wondered if he’d be able to survive the intensity of _all_ of their stares. The answer is, yes. Barely.

“Has she taught you something?” Their thighs are touching. All of a sudden, Yuri feels like he’s wearing a wool sweater and the heat is turned up too high. Which is a way you really _shouldn’t_ feel around your partner of one year over a tune on the piano.

Yuri would probably show him. Hit those four notes and show hope that Otabek would join in. Even if it was the product of being bored and hanging out with his kid sister. Cause even though that’s lame and a little strange, he’d totally probably be into that kind of sappy shit. “No. Not really,” he says under his breath.  

Yuri focuses on Otabek’s hands which rest gingerly on the keys.

He just, doesn’t _exactly_ remember which keys she showed him. Of course, if he _asked_ it defeated the purpose of _showing_ didn’t it? “Play me something nice.”

“Such as?” Otabek didn’t press the matter further. For that, he’s grateful.

“November Rain,” he can feel his lips curl into a smile, and he doesn’t even try to stop himself.

“Guns and Roses?” Otabek asks. “Disgusting.” Despite his complaints, Otabek’s hands glide across the keys, and with it comes the first few notes of the offending song.  

* * *

_Y,_

_I left you something on the piano._

_D_

* * *

Otabek has these narrow little adhesive arrows that he uses to pin his favorite places in books and keep his page. They’re neon colored and fall off when you try to turn the page. Naturally Yuri hates them.

There are four of them stuck to the piano keys. They’re all a bright pink color, and they’re numbered in dainty blue ink, one through four.

Yuri taps the first key, then the second, the third, and the fourth. He does it again, and again while he waits for his heartrate to return to normal. What the actual fuck was the deal with this family? The only phrase he can think of is _passive aggressive_ , but that isn’t true.

His closest ~~friends~~ are Viktor and Yuuri the king and queen of passive aggressive behavior. This is nothing like making your crush skate to his own drunken dance moves.

 _Passive aggressive…ly nice?_ Cause Yuri feels like someone’s holding a pillow over his face, and he’s got the urge to thank them for it.

Yuri can’t stop letting his fingers glide over the keys, even when he hears the _tap thunk tap thunk_ of Otabek awkwardly approaching on crutches.

“The fuck are you doing up here?”

Otabek slides onto the bench next to him. “This doesn’t look like breakfast.”

Yuri doesn’t have to look at his stupid face to know that he’s smiling. “So you climbed the stairs?” From the corner of his eye he can see Otabek’s hand join his on the keys. He plays the iconic notes, _dun dun duh._ And then they taper off to the rest of the chorus. “That’s somehow easier than getting it yourself?”

Yuri’s hand movements are awkward, and probably a bit off time with Otabek’s.  

“There was a really awful noise upstairs,” Otabek commented. Yuri doesn’t have to break his rigid stare at the keys to _know_ for a fact that Otabek’s all but grinning right now. It makes his face burn hot. Makes the combined stare of Otabek, Darya, and Farida _feel_ light in comparison. “You can slow down a little. Farida always plays things too quickly.”

Yuri complies. He’s right, the slowed sound of the song is much easier for him to keep time to.

“Otabek,”

“Hm?”

There’s a part of him that wants to ask…Ask if he passed the strange fucking series of tests or whatever the fuck it is that they all put him through the past few days…He knows though. Knows that he did, because this piano is Darya’s third child. Wouldn’t put sticky notes on it for much of anything. Knows that Yusef guards the family library. “Do you know the words?”

“Hm..I’m not so good at singing,” There’s a split-second skip in the notes. Otabek switches to his nondominant hand, because he’s Otabek fucking Altin, magnificent at _almost everything_.  Then, there’s a hand around his waist that makes _him_ mangle a few notes. “You start.”

“I don’t know them all.” Yuri's voice is almost a whine.

“I’ll fill in the ones you don’t.” Yuri can't say no to that kind of request.

“Heart and soul, I fell in love with you. Heart and soul.” His voice tapers off. “Madly?”

“Because you held me tight, and stole a kiss in the night.”

 


	3. The Baltika Belle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's where it's less of a one shot, and more of a one-ish shot. Or a two shot, or a moreshot contained in whatever the shit this is. Ratings bump cause a this chapter ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> Kisses and hugs my loves.

Yuri leans into Otabek and breathes in deeply. Usually the scent of leather is soothing on the back of the bike. Right now? It’s just tedious. They’ve been riding for almost three hours, and his ass has definitely fallen asleep. Yuri tries to shift a little bit on the seat without disturbing Otabek. They’re going too fast on the highway for him to fidget much.

The wind whips his hair around, even though he’s got it securely tied and the helmet is smushed over his skull. The wind sneaks in between his sleeves, drips down his chest, and tickles the place where his pants meet his shirt so that even though it’s summer, it still feels cold. Makes him feel vulnerable.

As if Otabek can read his mind, he takes the next exit. They stop at a filling station that looks like it hasn’t seen a customer in the past decade or so. The pump still has little numbers that flip over slowly in big white block letters while Otabek fills up the bike. The shop inside sells oil, washer solution, and radiator fluid. There’s no candy or snacks to speak of.

Yuri’s glad Otabek made them bring pirozhky from home.

After refueling, Otabek holsters the gas nozzle back into the pump. The red and white paint is peeling off of the pump and the nozzle, leaves thick chips of paint on Otabek’s palm which he wipes on his jeans. Otabek walks the bike away from the single pump at the service station, and they sit on a crumbling concrete wall nearby.

“How’s your leg?” Yuri pulls a bottle of water from his overstuffed knapsack. They traveled light and hoped that the rest of their things would meet them in Moscow safely. Shipping like that was always a gamble.

“Fine.”

Yuri unwraps pirozhky from a cloth napkin smuggled away from Lilia’s kitchen. “Go wash your fucking hands. Who fucking knows how much lead those paint chips have in them.” Yuri watches his gait as he walks just to make sure. Otabek’s been cleared for most activities by now post-surgery, but it’s hard not to worry.

Yuri’s not a doctor or anything, but Otabek seems to be moving just fine. There’s something else though. Otabek is tense beneath his touch on the bike, perhaps moreso than usual. The way that he goes a few kilometers _under_ the speed limit instead of a few _over_ like he normally does. The way he simply does as Yuri says instead of making a quip, or at the very least giving him a long lingering look that silently says, “you have a lot of nerve.”

Yuri can tell. Otabek’s nervous. Which Yuri flat out does not understand. Grandpa is just grandpa. He doesn’t live in a mansion. He doesn’t have his Ph.D. in literature or musical theory. He doesn’t have a grand piano or a Mercedes. If Yuri can get along well enough with Otabek’s parents, then Otabek should be able to get along with grandpa just fine.  

“What exit are we taking?” Otabek asks when he’s returned from thoroughly scrubbing his hands in the filling station bathroom, which Yuri can only assume is filthy. 

“Novinki,” he responds. It’s a nine hour haul from St. Petersburg to Moscow. They could’ve left at dawn and gotten there just after dusk, even with a few stops. But Yuri normally flies, never gets a chance to see the places in between. Thought it was slightly unfair that at this point he’s seen more of Kazhakstan than he has of his own country. They’re taking it slow and stopping in-between cities to visit briefly with his aunt. Yuri doesn’t know his extended family that well. Maybe he should considering how few of them there are left.

“You want to drive?”

Yuri cocks his head and squints his eyes at him. Sure, he’s driven Otabek’s Harley plenty of times, but usually for shorter trips. He rides the Ducati almost every day, but she’s not practical for two grown men and their overnight bags. “I want my ass to not fall asleep as soon as I get on.”

“You sit too far back,” Otabek notes. “You need to relax.”

“That’s lovely advice, coming from the living and breathing embodiment of tension.”

Otabek relaxes his pinched gaze as if to silently say, “I am not.” It proves the point more than anything else.

“You know how to get there?” Otabek asks. Cause GPS is great, but it really does nothing for the rural parts of Russia. Tetya Sofie didn’t live in Novinki proper. It was about thirty minutes east of the city, and a good hour or so away from the M-10 highway.

“Uh, yeah.” Yuri feels a tinge of panic start to blossom. “What you do after the main highway is turn left at this roadside cabbage stand. We should probably get a cabbage before we show up. You know, cause it’s polite to bring something.”

Yuri says when Otabek looks at him like he’s grown a second head when he suggests bringing produce. “Anyway, take that for about thirty km until the road turns to dirt. Take the dirt road til the rusty water pump and-“

“I do think it would be best if you drove.”

“You have to carry the cabbage then.”

Otabek rocks up on his heels. They’re standing close so that Yuri can feel the shift of his weight. It seems to silently ask, “Should we bring something else?” Otabek responds in tandem with his nervous tic. “Can’t we get something better along the way? Cognac? Or wine?” Otabek says out loud to back up his silent question.

Yuri shoves the cloth napkin that contained lunch into his bag, and crams the rest of the pirozhky into his mouth. “We’ll see if we can find anything.” He says with his mouth full. Yuri reaches his hand out toward Otabek, “keys.”

* * *

 

Otabek didn’t quite know what he expected. He’s lived in so many places, among them the most modern and advanced metropolitan cities in the world. He’s gone out into the mountains many times, and yet, the sight of the little dacha with it’s little round roof, and hammer and sickle ornament over just above the roof sends shivers down his spine in a way he never expected.

It’s two floors, the top part is made of straight panel wood painted robin’s egg blue. The bottom part is made of darker cherry colored wood. The windows have intricate molding around them. Immediately to the right is a large and expansive garden plot. Even from this distance, Otabek can see tomato vines, the sprawling vines of either squash or pumpkin, and of course the large crowning heads of cabbage in the dirt.

“What’s wrong city boy?”

He doesn’t have to be able to see Yuri’s face to feel the smirk he knows tugs at his face and rests between his cheeks. Otabek untangles his hands from around Yuri’s waist and dismounts from the bike. “Nothing Yuri. Good call on the cabbage.” Otabek hefts his rucksack over his shoulders and grabs the large head of cabbage they’d bought from the roadside stand.

“For fuck’s sake, I knew you were gonna say something.” Yuri glowers. “Anyway, stop deflecting. She’s nice enough for a hag.” He supplements quickly, “If I remember correctly. I haven’t been here since I was like ten.”

A woman darts from the house to greet them. She barrels forward in not so much of a run but more of a top heavy gallop. Otabek’s afraid she’ll topple over with one incorrect step.

“Yuratchka you look just like your mother.” Tetya Sofie was a short and sturdy woman, and if Yuri hadn’t called her auntie right away and jumped into her wide stance and open arms, he would’ve doubted the relation. Yuri said she was his mother’s sister, but the physical attributes shared between them were far and few between. Tetya Sofie had dirty blonde hair which is placed into two neat long braids which run down past her shoulders. They’re tied with thick white string. Her shoulders were broad, and she carried extra weight around the middle which was hidden under a large and loose fitting work shirt that buttoned in the back. However, her eyes were church glass green. It was there could Otabek see the familial linkage.

“I watched you in PyeongChang,” she says when she finally puts Yuri down onto the ground. “You too Mr. Altin.”

Otabek doesn’t get called _mister_ much, let alone by someone who’s a bit more than twice his age. It makes his skin itch in the same kind of way meeting the president did. “Call me Otabek.” He wipes his hand on his pants before he reaches for her hand. She pulls him in for a hug that’s too strong and too forward. When they part, he feels as if the wind has been knocked out of him. “We brought you a cabbage. It’s clear you have great need for it.” He gestures his head toward the door and the garden.

Sophie’s laughter roars like thunder, rattles the windows of the dacha.

Yuri and Otabek help Sophie prepare dinner; zakuski, an assortment of finger foods. There’s herring, sauerkraut salad, dried fruit, and little cold cut sandwiches. Otabek mostly slices vegetables, while Yuri does the arranging on a large platter adorned with ivy leaves and grapes. The façade of the platter is cracked and reveals a rough off white plaster beneath.

Otabek tries everything, even the monstrosity that Yuri calls “kholodet.” It’s more pickled vegetables alongside chicken, and boiled eggs set in a savory gelatin. Otabek doesn’t want it all, but he doesn’t want to be rude. He and Yuri have shared countless meals together at this point. It should be telling that it’s the only food he’s ever seen Yuri refuse.

Sophie and Yuri talk excitedly about Moscow and Nikolai. Otabek doesn’t contribute much to the conversation. His attention is diverted to stealthily maneuvers with his napkin, so he can spit out the kholodet, which is foul in every possible way.

After the meal, Yuri looks to his empty plate, to Sophie, and then to his empty plate again. “Do you have any buttermilk?”

“Yura,” Sophie beams “That’s not a proper desert.”

Otabek agrees. It’s not, and he’d very much like desert.

“Do you even know?” Yuri leans forward and pounds his hand on the pale pink tablecloth. The porcelain salt and pepper shakers clink together with the forceful movement. “How I dream of buttermilk? It’s just not good from the store.”

Otabek has tea and cookies. Sophie and Yuri share buttermilk from a bright blue mason jar with fresh cracked pepper. Otabek doesn’t understand.

It’s like a switch flips within Yuri, and he doesn’t quite know how to accept it. It’s harder to decode than kicks of various intensity and pressure, or vague and angry language, or loud obnoxious underwear. Yuri ties his hair back with an elastic band, and washes all of the dishes at the old enamel washbasin.

Otabek dries them.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

The dishes clink together in the sink. They don’t speak again for a long time. He’d like to think that he knows Yuri quite well. Maybe better than anyone else. Shouldn’t he, after a year of being romantically involved, know this about him too?

Or did the time frame not matter so much? Was it simply enough to have the privilege to see him this way?

Yuri feeds Sophie’s chickens with great vigor and excitement. Yuri insists that they gather eggs too. Otabek was told to help in a gruff voice, but spends most of the time shielding himself with his hands. Animals of all kinds make him nervous.

Then, Yuri makes Otabek carry several large wicker baskets out to Sophie’s garden plot. “You like plants right? You should be better at this.” Yuri sounds determined to bring some vegetables with them to Moscow, even if they just have the bike. 

Otabek is in fact better at this. They pick summer squash, tomatoes, radishes, carrots, cucumbers, and leaves of lettuce that are as large as their faces. The crisp snapping noise of plants coming off of the vine is soothing in a way that he can’t quite pinpoint.

The sun is about to go down, and with it tinges everything with a golden pink hue. The rows of vegetables before them, the wheat fields behind them. Even the little dacha looks like it’s got a golden halo around it. It reminds him of Almaty and of the orchard at his mother’s.

Some of the squashes are rotten at the blossom. There’s not enough nitrogen in the soil.

“You’re not okay though.”

Otabek doesn’t respond right away. They revisit abandoned conversations regularly now. It’s one of the many verbal tics that he’s instilled upon Yuri. That isn’t to say Yuri hasn’t instilled several in him. For example, he swears sometimes now. He’s reached some kind of peace with the situation. He doesn’t need Yuri to tug it back open.

“You never struck me as the kind of person to feed chickens.

“Grandpa doesn’t keep chickens. He lives in a dreary as shit complex. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

Otabek laughs. He loves the way that Yuri can assuage his fears by giving these vague almost non-sequitur answers that feel so appropriate. Does Yuri know that? Know that he loves those? How could he? He’s never said as much.

“Look,” Yuri’s eyes sparkle with a delight that’s usually saved for the podium, or the sight of a beautiful piece of leopard print clothing, or Otabek after a long time spent apart. Yuri shoves a bright red tomato into his field of vision. It’s got a large crack down the skin, splitting the fruit into two distinctive hemispheres.  “This one looks like an ass.”

Sophie drinks vodka straight from an eight ounce jelly jar with intricate little patterns in the glass. Yuri pulls them a bottle of mulled wine from down in the cellar. It’s sweet, but tastes earthy like cinnamon and clove too. Otabek has to be careful to not drink the entire bottle. They sit on the porch and watch the sun down. Sophie in her rocking chair, Otabek in a kitchen chair pulled outside to the porch, and Yuri on the hard wood of the porch itself. 

At some point, Sophie extracts a domra from inside the house. It’s got three strings, and a mother of pearl inlay. Her fingers meander lazily up and down the frets while they sit and drink.

“Otabek plays all kinds of music,” Yuri chirps between large greedy sips of wine.

She offers the instrument to Otabek.

Of course he declines.

But he knows he’s had enough wine when he starts singing over the sharp and pitchy notes. It’s okay though. Yuri’s voice joins his and covers up the errors he makes when he inevitably forgets the words to folk songs he’s heard the words to thousands of times, but never paid attention to. 

“I got the guest bedroom ready for you. Just in case,” Sophie says well after midnight.

Yuri purses his lips together. “We wanted to sleep in the wheat fields.”

“Does Otabek want that?”

Otabek nods.  He does. Very much so.

They set the sleeping bag up, not so much in the wheat field as they do adjacent to it. The sound of the long blades of wheat rustling against each other sounds like low rolling waves of the ocean. The sound, when combined with the low buzz of summer cicadas is soothing in a way that he would not expect. The sounds are constant, and therefore unable to be ignored. It pushes all of those lingering questions from his mind like, did Sophie like him? And, would Nikolai like him? And what else is there about Yuri that he’s yet to learn? And why can’t he learn it now?

“Leg’s okay right?” Yuri asks when they’re finally snuggled together underneath the bag. The air is warm, but Otabek wants the extra heat for now. Later he’s sure they’ll both crawl out from under the thick fabric, but now this is fine. Lets his hands wander over Yuri’s body without making them feel completely exposed.

“It’s fine.”

“Needy.” Yuri notes when Otabek’s hands disappear underneath his shirt. Otabek doesn’t respond. Just mouths at his neck and enjoys the drag of soft skin beneath his fingers. “Want me to jerk you off?”

“Not really,” Otabek puffs hot air against Yuri’s dampened skin.

“Oh, a blowjob then?” Yuri says with a slight chuckle.

“No.”

Otabek knows that Yuri knows what he wants. It’s clear in the way that Yuri shifts against him. Clear in the way that Yuri pushes him down with a widely splayed palm so that he’s flat on his back and tells him, “Look at the stars Beka. Look how pretty they are.” Long fingers unbutton his pants, and free his cock.

They are clear like big crystal baubles on a chandelier, or pinpricks against inky blackness. There is no moon.

“You want to fuck me then?”

“It’s the thing that’s furthest from my mind,” Otabek confesses, but only after Yuri’s given him a few feather light strokes which pull him to attention and make him want to beg for more.

“Oh,” Yuri’s hand stills for a moment and he just holds Otabek against his palm. “You want me to fuck you.” Yuri says with a slight lilt to his voice, as if the thought had just occurred to him.

“Please.”

“Did you even bring any stuff?” But Yuri’s already clamoring for the knapsack.

“Yes,” Otabek admits sheepishly. He knows what’s coming next.

“Oh, so I can barely touch you the entire time we’re in Almaty with your folks, but it’s okay when you’re with mine.”

“Yuri,” Otabek all but whines. “You know it’s not like that.” There’s a big difference between staying in a room on the main floor near the kitchen and staying outside alone near a wheat field. “Are you going to do me or not?”

Yuri has him lay on his side. For that Otabek is grateful. This way he can still see the milky white stars against the jet black horizon.

Otabek didn’t know that Yuri was capable of working him open with his fingers so slowly. Time seemed to stand still, Yuri was so unhurried to add more fingers. Yuri asked him frequently, “does it feel okay?” and, “Is your knee okay?” The way Yuri makes love to him is similar. The drag and burn is quite familiar, but the slowness in which Yuri moves causes him to ache with each languid roll of Yuri’s hips.

Afterward Yuri makes them clean up with icy cold water straight from the pump.

* * *

 

They arrive in Moscow at 1:30 PM the next day.

Yuri said that Nikolai lived in a dreary complex, but this wasn’t exactly true. Moscow, was built the way that most modern cities were, by hastily slapping new buildings next to old as time marched on. There are a few ramshackle single family homes that sit in front of a stiflingly gray and listless apartment complex that towers into the skyline. Yuri’s family home is in one of these slightly dilapidated houses.

However, Yuri was correct about not having to care for chickens or pick vegetables. There are few living things around to speak of save for old ladies that push shopping baskets and very young children out in the street who should probably be attended.

Yuri parks the bike in front of a house that looks like it’s been cobbled together from multiple houses. There’s a room out front with bright green paint on the siding. The rest of the siding is gray, save for the patches that are a lighter cream color. 

There’s a wilting wooden fence out front that’s painted green too. An old man emerges from the house as soon as Yuri kills the engine.

“Dedushka!” Yuri’s voice is wind and sunshine as he runs into the old man’s arms, and Otabek can see that Yuri is trying very hard to contain himself. It takes every ounce of energy Yuri has to _not_ wrap his legs around the old man’s middle. In an instant, everything becomes very clear. Otabek’s been knocked over in several baggage claims in multiple international airports in just the same way. 

Nikolai’s handshake is firm. Otabek catches the other man’s eye for a moment while their hands are intertwined, and there’s a question there. Otabek can only assume his eyes ask it too. Is this to formal? Should they embrace, because despite the fact that they’ve never met in person before this moment, they know great deal about one another through Yuri. Or, conversely is this not formal enough? Should Otabek not desperately aim for Nikolai’s approval?

“Otabek Altin,” the older man speaks finally. “It’s good to meet you in person.”

“Likewise.”

“Although from Yuri’s phone calls, I feel as if I’ve known you for a long time.”

“Likewise.” Perhaps Otabek should say something else. Something that is as warm and honest as Nikolai’s words. Otabek’s mind is as blank as freshly smoothed ice, so he says nothing instead.

“Yuratchka, that’s not a Ducatti,” Nikolai says gesturing to the bike. It’s overburdened with the vegetables they brought with them from Novinki and their overnight bags.

“Uh, no?” Yuri says. “Mine’s small. We can’t bring that all the way out here. Otabek’s bike is better for travel.”

* * *

 

Yuri shows him his room. Much like his own room in Almaty it’s filled with artifacts of a life long passed, and filled with relics from a childhood that Yuri probably didn’t have. Yuri’s bookshelf is hardly filled with books. Instead, it’s filled with toy horses crafted with various amounts of effort and realism. There are ugly resin crafted horses that look cheap. Their manes and tails are hard lumps of plastic, their painted eyes don’t match up with the indentations in the molding. Some are nicer looking. They have velvety soft flocked skin and synthetic hair manes and tails.

Otabek reaches for a flocked appaloosa. He ends up knocking every single one on the shelf over.

“Nice Altin. You’re here for fifteen minutes and you’re already fucking up my shit.”

“Sorry,” Otabek tries to make the horses stand up properly, but many of them are in prancing positions and don’t sit right on their feet. “You have so many.” Otabek says when he finally gets the last one to stand up properly.

“Yeah, I used to have a shit-ton of little cowboys too. You know cause I was into that.”

“Lemonade Joe…” Otabek smiles softly remembering that and all of the other Ostern films that he and Yuri have watched together.

“Yeah, I blew them up with firecrackers though after I got done with cowboys. The horses could stay though. They were cool.”

Otabek allows himself to laugh. It bubbles up lightly from the surface, unlike his usual laughter, but it feels just as genuine. For the first time, possibly since they left St. Petersburg he feels at ease.

“You got to blow things up? With fireworks?”

Yuri snorts. “You didn’t?” He looks upward to the corner of his eye for a moment as if deep in thought. “Oh right, no I guess _you_ didn’t,” he says with a slight giggle.

Yuri’s bed is small. Only a twin. Otabek wonders how they’ll both fit. Other than the horses, there’s not much here. A few discarded pairs of ice skates that are several sizes too small. There is also wooden wardrobe that’s shorter than Otabek. The floor is hardwood, but is covered by a shag rug that sticks slightly to his socks.

It looks like time has stood still here. Like nothing’s changed in thirty or so years.  Despite Yuri having lived here, it looks like there’s been nothing new brought to the house in decades.

“Maybe we’ll go blow some shit up after dinner.”

“Yuri that’s not necessary.”

“Pssh.” Yuri makes another elongated scoffing noise. “Yeah, I think it is. Since I never realized you had such a sad and deprived childhood.”

 Nikolai makes them dinner, which is luckily free of all forms of gelatin, aspics, and other foods that should never be made into jelly form. Being with Yuri means that Otabek has had a lot of Pirozhky in the last year. The ones that Nikolai serves are by and large the best. Afterwards, Yuri declares that he wants to take a bath and change clothes. He’s been wearing the same thing since they left St. Petersburg the day before.

It just leaves Otabek and Nikolai. Nikolai sits on a large dusty armchair. Otabek sinks into the couch, which is adorned with an ugly orange, yellow, and rust red floral pattern. It smells like second hand smoke and mothballs. Makes his nose tickle. The television might be the only newer item in the room, maybe the whole house. It’s a “flat screen” of the old design still a several inches thick. The pixels stick out awkwardly in certain parts of the plasma sticks out in awkward green and pink.

Nikolai has _Russia-K_  channel on. He watches it a lot in St. Petersburg. There’s usually something nice on for background noise: things about science, or art, or literature. Although the volume is low, Otabek can tell that the opera on screen is _The Marriage of Figaro_.

“Yuri’s Ducati,” Nikolai revisits the topic from beforehand. “He never had much interest driving before. I let him drive my Zastava. No interest.”

Otabek can feel his throat go dry before he even tries to say anything. What can he say? There’s a bit of a difference between the best kind of performance motorcycle and a three cylinder car that’s got a hole rusted through the floorboard. However, he let Yuri drive his bike in the city without a license countless times last summer. Wherever the gap is between what Nikolai knows and what he doesn’t know is slim, even if he himself is unaware of it.

Nikolai rises from the chair like it’s a grand undertaking. He grips at the armrest, pulls himself forward and then steadies himself. “You want a beer?”

“No,” Otabek replies honestly. The mulled wine last night at Sophie’s was delicious. However, the mixture of sugar and alcohol went right to his head. It made him ask Yuri to drive the next morning because of the way the dull ache pulled at his vision, made him keep his sunglasses over his eyes.

“So you don’t drink?” Nikolai asks from the kitchen. Otabek can hear the crisp pop of a can of beer followed by the spray of the foam.

“Not really. Not often.” Until last night, Otabek hadn’t touched anything since the gala at Worlds. Even then it was just a few glasses of red wine.

“That’s probably good then isn’t it?”

“I guess so,” Otabek responds. Otabek feels like there was a question behind the question there. Maybe he got the answer right.

Nikolai sinks back down into the chair. “You like this?” He gestures to the television.

Otabek watches the dust float about the room in the glare coming in from the window. His eyes dart from the television from the curio cabinet in the corner, which is filled with all sorts of knick knacks, to the window where an aloe plant looks worse for its wear, back down to the thick brown carpet. “Yeah. I do.”

“Me too.” Nikolai grunts roughly. “Even though I don’t always understand what’s going on.”

* * *

 

After his shower, Yuri leads him by the hand outside, past the old broken down green fence, behind the large towering Krushchyovka nearby. Despite the painfully urban setting of Yuri’s neighborhood, there’s a little stream and all sorts of trees nearby.

Yuri’s wearing a t-shirt backwards. It reads, “Bar Kvarita,” in wide white letters across black cotton. Yuri’s got the neck cut out so that it hangs low on his exposed shoulders. It’s cut up the sides too and tied tightly above his belly button and then pulled back down over the crest of his hips.

Otabek _feels_ like he went to a bar with that name with Kamilya and Vera last New Years, and so he _feels_ like the shirt was his originally. Yuri’s got a big stack of papers up under his arm.

Yuri leads him to a big rusted out barrel. There are dried branches stick out over the top. “Okay,” Yuri hands him the stack of newspapers and magazines. “I couldn’t find any fireworks or anything fun. But” Yuri extracts an impossibly small bottle of butane from his pocket. The kind you use to refill lighters and the like.

Otabek remembers the faint smell of smoke from inside the house. He wonders if he will get blamed for it if the butane has gone missing.

“We’re gonna burn this shit anyway. It’s gonna be fun.” Yuri says in a matter of fact tone.

Otabek dumps the paper on top of the dried branches. Yuri hands him the small bottle of butane. Otabek doesn’t need further instruction. He dumps it out on top of the scattered papers. Then, Yuri fishes a matchbook from his pocket.

“Alright Altin.” Yuri hands him the book of matches. “I don’t think I need to explain much more.”

Yuri’s correct. Without another word between them Otabek strikes a match. The sound is sharp despite the fact that the clearing is quite loud. There’s the sound of the stream, and the sound of children still playing outside in the warm summer night air, and their parents yelling after them. Otabek tosses the match into the barrel and watches it all go up in flame.

They watch the fire in silence for what could be hours, in reality probably minutes. “Can we add those?” Otabek says finally. He gestures to a long discarded couch that’s pushed in between a fallen tree and one that’s still living. “The cushions.”

“Those will go up in seconds,” Yuri says with a devilish grin. “Let’s get ‘em.”

* * *

 

At night Yuri pads the floor down with an endless stream of quilts and blankets so they don’t have to try to crowd together onto the twin sized mattress.

“you having a good time?” Yuri asks when the lights are off and the moonlight streams into the window.

“Of course.” It’s almost the truth. Would be, if Otabek weren’t so worried about making a good impression.

“If your leg hurts or anything, get in bed. I won’t mind.”

“It won’t hurt.” Otabek says and lets Yuri pull him close.

* * *

 

Yuri doesn’t quite understand what the fuck Otabek’s problem is. The hours in Moscow unfold with an impossible sluggishness, which should be Otabek’s thing. The day after they burn shit down by the creek, Yuri finds steel wool underneath the sink. Yuri leads Otabek down to the clearing by the hand and shows him the way steel wool burns when you pull it apart and let the air get inside. “Looks like brains or something right?” He says as he elbows Otabek in the ribs.

That night he and grandpa make stuffed cabbage for dinner out of impossibly large pieces of pickled cabbage. They top it with leftover bigos from the night before.

The day after, Yuri makes sure to haul his ass down to the corner store and get some firecrackers so he can really show Otabek what he missed when he was in Paris, and Vienna, Canada and America, and wherever the fuck else he spent his time. They do all sorts of stupid shit like blow up bottles and pieces of near rotten fruit from the kitchen, and throw them at trees.

Okay Yuri does most of this, like 99% of all of this, but Otabek watches and doesn’t say a goddamn word which means that he’s enjoying himself more than he’d ever care to say.

Yuri gets a big stack of fire crackers, and he hasn’t done it in awhile so it takes him bit to grow bored of it. They hang out down by the creek until the brats who live in the complex get off of school, which let’s Yuri know that it’s time to scram. Yuri silently pockets all of their contraband and steers Otabek back toward the house.

 “They were catching tadpoles. We could’ve helped them.”

“That’s lame.”

“I agree,” Otabek says flatly. “Much less cool than blowing up discarded plastic bottles.”

“I don’t wanna fuck around in the creek,” Yuri explains. “Smells bad, plus I’m wearing designer.”

Yuri can feel Otabek look him up and down. “No you aren’t.”

“Look just because this shirt has bleach stains, and a hole in the shoulder doesn’t negate the fact that it’s Versace.” Yuri holds the shirt away from his middle and walks backwards out in front of Otabek so that he _has_ to stare at the medusa logo, no matter how faded the screen printing might be.

When they get back inside, Grandpa announces, “Yuratchka, Otabek I’m tired tonight. Let’s go to Tema for dinner.” Which was grandpa’s favorite place from way back.

 “From what? Sleeping in your chair all day?” Yuri says it with rancor in his voice, but he can feel something else there too. Not fear, or anxiety…More like pressure. Pressure that he needs to accept that he can’t jump into grandpa’s arms anymore. Pressure to fix whatever it was that hadn’t been broken.

Yuri’s not the smartest person in the world. He knows that. Struggled through years of tutoring and shit to realize that if it’s not ballet and it’s not skating or cooking, he probably doesn’t care, and if he doesn’t care he’s not going to pay attention long enough to become proficient.

So it takes almost three days of them being in Moscow together, in Grandpa’s rusted tin can of a car for him to realize that you could hear a pin drop. In that moment, as he watches the road fly by through the rusted out floorboard, Yuri knows that if it were just him and grandpa they’d be talking about all sorts of things.

And if it was just him and Otabek they might not speak at all, but the atmosphere would be totally different.

But now the tension between them is just thick and uncomfortable, and how the fuck could his two favorite people not fucking _adore_ each other?

* * *

 

Bar Tema is packed, even though it’s almost too early for dinner when they arrive. It’s filled with deep wooden booths with sagging cushions, endlessly long tables, and a back bar that was stacked with no less than five different tiers of liquor.

Otabek sits on the inner end of the booth and leans against the cool brick wall. The large bay windows are propped open wide to let air in, but the June air does nothing in a crowd of this many people. At the very least the open windows let in lots of natural light, and let the sound drain out into the street so they can hear each other talk.  The smooth brick feels nice in comparison to the mugginess inside the bar.

 “Well, it’s really busy,” Yuri notes with an unnaturally large, if not completely forced smile. The kind that is reserved for the press, and only when Yuri deems that they’re being insufferable. “So maybe I should go to the counter and get our drinks. Should I order food too?”

The expression shakes Otabek to the core, and he wonders what it is that he’s done wrong.

“Not a bad idea Yuratchka. Order us an appetizer first, and I want I want a Baltika,” Nikolai says.

“Dark right?” Yuri supplies.

“Hm,” grandpa hums in agreement.

“Beka?”

“Oh,” Otabek looks up from where he was staring. There’s an ostentatiously large sign on the wall for the brand of beer that Nikolai just ordered. It’s a newer ad, but it’s been made to look old. It’s made to look like a painted sign, like the kind his host parents had in their basement in America. The sign has a woman with blonde hair and impossibly big green eyes. Her cheeks are cherry red, and she’s holding a beer near her tight closed mouthed smile. It’s a nice enough smile, if it doesn’t look forced. “Don’t you need help carrying the drinks?”

“No,” Yuri scoffs. Closes his eyes and holds his hand upward and flat the way Otabek often does when he himself is annoyed or put out. “I have got this under control.”

“Something sweet then maybe?” Otabek asks without really thinking. At best Yuri will bring him a Coke, at worst a wine that’s a bit too dry for his liking that he’ll nurse through the meal.

“Got it,” and Otabek feels the ghost of a kiss at his temple. His eyes go wide as dinner plates. Yuri’s always said that Nikolai didn’t care. There’s a difference between not caring, and not wanting to see. Before he can protest the action, Yuri turns on his heel and darts to the bar.

“The Baltika Belle,” Nikolai says after a few moments. “You’re staring at her,”

“I guess so,” but Otabek’s gaze did inevitably wander back to the sign. He feels like he’s seen the forced smile before.  “Yuri was staring at her.” Which shouldn’t be that surprising. Yuri is mesmerized by a good window display. He loves to shop. The first pieces of art he bought for the carriage house were giant printed versions of Dior perfume ads. There’s the one with the woman’s exposed back, the one with ballerina’s bare leg against the barre, and the one with the black cat against the woman’s ankles. “Yuri was looking at her.” It wasn’t the faux chalk and pastel of the Dior ads, but Otabek can understand why he likes it.

Which was true. If Otabek had been staring, that Yuri had been burning holes into the sign with his gaze.

“That’s Yuratchka’s mother,” Nikolai says as if that’s all the explanation he’d need.

“What do you mean?”

“She was an actress of sorts. The beer ad was her most famous one. There were a couple others for places here in Moscow. A car dealership, and a home security company.”

“Oh,” Otabek puts his palms flat on the mosaic tiled table. He wishes he had a drink right now. He’d sip on it until Yuri came back. “I guess there’s a lot I don’t really know about Yuri.” He’d never really heard his partner discuss his mother much at all. Otabek had assumed he’d bring it up when he was ready.

Because he’s tried to bring up all sorts of things. Things about his father, and living in America and Canada, and his time in pair skating, but it all comes out wrong, and so Yuri is patient with him.

“Listen,” Nikolai looks over to make sure that Yuri’s still at the bar. He’s is. Still waiting in line. “How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“So you’re telling me that you want to know everything about Yuratchka right now? When you’re twenty and you have your whole life ahead of you?”

Otabek opens his mouth to speak, but closes it because he doesn’t like it when people talk without listening. He can only assume that Nikolai feels the same way since he requested that Otabek listen in the first place.

“Like those books you always have you want to know the beginning, and the middle and the end right now? Would that not be boring when you’re say my age? You don’t just read a person like a book, one time and you’re finished. You know everything.”

Otabek wants to argue that he’s read his favorites multiple times, and that each time he finds something new. Writes it down in the margins or highlights the page so that he can remember that particular discovery all over again the next time that he reads.

Nikolai seems to be implying that its perfectly fine to begin reading the book in the middle, write new chapters at the end, and then go back and take brief glimpses at the beginning.

It’s a wonderful perspective. Otabek can only hope that he can actually accept the advice. 

 


	4. Code Switch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Me in January: NO DIRECT FAWL SEQUEL LOL  
> Me in February: Basically this is a direct FAWL sequel, and I'm mostly okay with this except I have no idea what I'm doing. Here's 6k words of vauging with minimal resolution. What to heck.

Otabek watches Yuri weave in and out of the crowd back toward the table with three drinks precariously balanced between his hands. “This place is too fucking crowded.” The offending words roll off his tongue as if Nikolai should be used to hearing them, although Otabek can’t recall a time in the past few days when he’s actually swore in front of his grandfather.

Yuri’s brought him a glass of something that’s dark red and sweet like wine, but doesn’t taste bitter like alcohol.  Otabek cannot decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

“Mors.” Yuri cocks his head as he says it, as if to silently ask, “have you had it before?”

So Otabek nods “no” in response.

“It’s barely got any booze in it,” Yuri explains.  

“Otabek likes the sign,” Nikolai says in a voice that’s stern, unwavering, yet simultaneously round around the edges. Otabek has noticed that the Plisetsky’s are needlessly gruff and terse.

Otabek almost spits out his drink as he feels the seat dip next to him and Yuri returns to his side.

“Huh?” Yuri combs through his hair with his fingers and manipulates it into a messy bun. The heat inside the bar is sweltering. Otabek wonders if the skin on Yuri’s neck is damp with sweat, and if little bumps of goose flesh have appeared there when he lifted the thick blanket of hair from his skin. “Oh, grandpa told you?” Yuri pushes stray strands behind his ears. “We look alike right?”

“No,” Otabek smiles and knocks his knee to Yuri’s playfully under the table. The closeness only makes everything feel hotter and more damp, but there’s something about Moscow that just makes him feel like whatever it is that he has with Yuri is fleeting. Like he needs to hold on with everything he’s got, but can’t explain why. Nothing’s changed between them at all.

The model’s hair is blonde, to the point of looking almost white in the flat and under shaded tones in the paint. Her eyes are emerald green. Not to mention all the intricacies of faces. Sharp cheek bones, slightly upturned nose, and a thousand little things Otabek’s sure he’s missing because he’ll never meet her in person.  “Not at all.” The grin he gives is genuine despite the tightness he feels in his chest. “You weren’t going to say anything?”

“How many times,” Yuri’s voice drops low. His eyes meet Otabek’s despite being half lidded, and it’s like they’re the only people in the bar. “Have you tried telling me about the tree?”

Otabek wants to feel hurt by the comment, but in some ways he understands. How many times did he try to explain while they were in Almaty together? How many afternoons did they sit under the tree? And of those how many times did he watch Yuri trace the gold with long delicate fingers?

“You should tell him about these things,” Nikolai says. 

The comment pull him and Yuri back to reality. Back to the shared space, where they were very much not in private. Nikolai’s eyes drift back and forth among the other signs that line the walls of the bar. There’s sincerity there in his voice, despite the fact that it’s in stark contrast to what he’d told Otabek moments ago.

 “I tell Otabek all sorts of things,” Yuri insists, his tone is defensive. “It’s hard right? Otabek?” Yuri ribs him gently under the table.

“Hm,” Otabek agrees drinking more of his drink. It seems to be the safest option considering the complexity of the conversation unfolding before him.

“Clearly,” Nikolai laughs in the way that old people do when they think that they have something figured out completely, and that younger people have no clue. Otabek’s always hated that. Whenever he’s gotten those laughs, or sighs, or long stares that never quite meet your gaze from adults, he’s always had some inkling, even if he can’t figure out how to put it into words, or actions, or coherent thoughts.

He doesn’t _know_ exactly what it is that hangs between he and Yuri, himself and Nikolai, Nikolai and Yuri, the three of them together. But he knows that his chest feels heavy. He knows that his mind won’t let it alone.

“Let’s get Otabek more Mors,” Nikolai suggests with a half smile. He flags down a waitress and then pulls a deck of cards seemingly from thin air. “Let’s play bridge while we wait for our food.”

Otabek welcomes the distraction despite the fact that he has no idea how to play bridge. It means that Yuri can lean in close, look over his cards and tell him what to do. Means he doesn’t have to think about much of anything at all.

* * *

Otabek remembers what Nikolai says, even through the cloud of drink, and food that is far too rich for an athlete to eat, and smoke that doesn’t quite flow out the large open windows of the bar. Otabek wonders if it’s just that simple. Will time melt away the uncertainty? Otabek suspects when new answers are uncovered, new questions will follow in place.

The next morning, Yuri is slow to rise. Otabek tried with soft kisses to his neck and his temple. He tried whispering all sorts of things in Yuri’s ear. Things that were true, and things that were heartfelt, and things that would make him kick and flail with faux rage.

Nikolai and Otabek make breakfast together in near silence, porridge with milk sugar and butter.

Nikolai asks, “what do you make in Almaty?” In a tone that’s low, conversational, and unassuming.

“Nothing this good.” Nikolai doesn’t quite trust Otabek in the kitchen. So, where Yuri delegates things like chopping vegetables into neat little pieces and stirring unattended pots, Nikolai makes him man the coffee pot and set the table. Otabek sets three places, but wonders if Yuri will wake up.

“Nothing that takes this much time,” Otabek continues without being prompted. Last summer, if they weren’t fooling around before their alarms, it meant they were sleeping in. “Protein shakes, or cold cereal, or energy bars.  Sometimes Yuri would get fresh fruit. Green and orange melon. Maybe yogurt.”

Otabek tries to hide the pinch of a blush he felt recalling how they’d share the same bowl or the same spoon, even before they’d confessed their feelings for one another. It makes the ends of the tips of his ears sting red with embarrassment. It’s always been so easy to be so intimate with Yuri, and yet the simplest of words seem to dry up in his throat and wilt. Sometimes it feels like they never talked about their feelings at all. Like he’s still treading not so carefully with this beautiful and wonderful secret that he loves Yuri. Sometimes he can bare his soul without being so much as prompted to do so.

Nikolai abandons the porridge at the stove for a moment for the coffee pot. The hot plate is covered in spatters of white and rust brown from places where coffee has spilled and burned, spilled and burned. The counter top is stained too from coffee, and errant cigarette ends, and hot pans that were left on cream colored counters for far too long so that the counter top is a mottled mixture of brown and tan. Nikolai tops off the top of his mug with more coffee.

“Yuratchka used to hate melon.” Nikolai’s tone implies that it’s an offhanded comment, but Otabek’s spent a lifetime around people who do not speak unless the words are meaningful. He can only assume that Nikolai’s words are meaningful.  “You see?” Nikolai speaks with a lilt in his voice. One that Otabek hasn’t heard before. “I know him since birth, and I still learn new things.”

Just like that, in a half second spark, the tight secretive feeling fades. He’ll see Yuri do something private, or realizes that only he knows something about him, and the insecurity is gone. The little spark of intimacy keeps him mollified until the next time.

They hear Yuri coming before he arrives. His footsteps are heavy and rattle the canisters on the counter which hold sugar, flour, and coffee. “Hot cereal and coffee?” Yuri’s voice sounds as if every syllable is being pulled out slowly and arduously. “Gross. It’s so fucking hot already.”

Yuri’s a vision as always. Long, sleep kinked hair shrouds his face. Yuri’s pajama top is on inside out because he didn’t sleep with a shirt on when they were bundled close together in the nest of blankets on the floor. Too hot. He’d just pulled it on.

Yuri throws himself into one of the wooden chairs at the table. The legs knock against linoleum.

“Get up, get your breakfast,” Nikolai says. He’s got his own breakfast at the table already. He’s gone back to the counter for his coffee mug.

“Beka will get it for me.” There’s an upward inflection in Yuri’s tone. There’s a question laden between all the drowsiness. As if he didn’t so much expect Otabek’s help, but would like it very much since thinking, and standing, and function seems impossible in his sleep addled state.

Otabek understands this very much.

“Just this once,” but Otabek’s already pouring Yuri a cup of coffee.

“Don’t let him boss you around,” Nikolai says it with a voice that is gruff like Yuri’s. Otabek cant stop his face from pulling into a half smile at the statement. Otabek’s noticed the way that they’ve had pirozhky for dinner or lunch almost every day, and each day there was a different kind of filling. Between the two of them, Yuri could tell them to do almost anything.

Nikolai announces late in the morning, “I’m going to go see Boris. Play some bridge.”

“Huh?” Yuri asks. He’s migrated to the armchair in the living room and settled into a long bout of arguing over Twitter with the Nishigori’s. “Oh, I guess it is Wednesday isn’t it?”

Nikolai nods, as if this were a longstanding tradition.  “You should take Otabek to see Moscow. Not just sit around the house.”

 “Yeah, yeah.” Yuri gets up from the armchair where he’d been lazing and rocks up on the balls of his feet, raises his arms high, and stretches. Otabek thinks he looks like a big languid cat. Especially in his tiger printed pajama set.  They didn’t stay late at the bar, but Yuri felt compelled to match beers with his grandfather. Three or four when you rarely drank was quite bit, and it showed on Yuri in his sluggish movements and disheveled appearance well past breakfast.

Otabek’s not used to seeing him wear this many clothes without being fully dressed for the day.

Yuri pulls his grandfather into a hug. “Whaddya want for dinner?”

“You only ask that when you have something specific you want to make anyway,” Nikolai says with a strange expression that’s somewhere between a grin and a grimace. It’s one he’s seen Yuri wear too from time to time.

“So okoroshka’s fine then?” Yuri says as he pulls back from the embrace.

“I suppose.”

“It’s hot grandpa. Doesn’t okoroskha sound good?”

“You’ll need to pick up potatoes then,” and pulls several paper bills from his wallet.

“Stop that,” Yuri’s jaw goes slack and his eyes go wide like he’s touched and horrified too. “I don’t need that. 

An argument ensues. Yuri insisting that he doesn’t need the money, and Nikolai insisting that he should take it on principle. Otabek tries to divert his eyes from the argument, sink into the couch or something equivalent but that plan goes awry when Nikolai says finally, “Otabek would accept this,” and thrusts the bills into Otabek’s palm before he can refuse.

When the door clicks shut and locks, Otabek places the money back on the end table by Nikolai’s chair.

“You should put it up in the envelope in the kitchen cabinent if you really want to end this.” Yuri snaps up the bills and walks toward the kitchen. “I hate to ask, but can I get you to help me clean today? Since he’s gone?”

 “Of course.” It’s only been a few days, but Otabek’s seen plenty of Moscow from the bike, and from the tin can car. Although cleaning is far from romantic, it fits the strange kind of low and eerie calm they’ve adapted ever since they reached the city.

“Thanks. It’s just.” Yuri resurfaces, still in his pajamas with cleaning rags, and a duster. “It’s dusty as fuck in here.” It’s true, there are cobwebs in the corners, and it’s not uncommon that he can see translucent specs of dust in the light of the windows like clouds. “I tried paying this woman? One that lives in the complex, couple of kids and no husband all that kind of sad shit. To clean. But the old man wouldn’t let her,” Yuri explains.

Yuri dusts the knickknacks on the shelves and surrounding the television set. His movements are still sleepy slow.

Otabek reaches up on the tips of his toes to get at the cobwebs in the corners.

“It is hard though isn’t it?” Yuri speaks after awhile.

It takes Otabek a moment to realize he’s talking about something that was said before, so he searches the depths of his mind to figure out what. It’s a bad habit he’s instilled upon Yuri, because Yuri has the tendency to take things to extremes. So the conversations that Otabek abandons and picks up maybe half an hour later, turn into hours or days when Yuri does it.

“Yeah,” Otabek says finally. “But I feel like it shouldn’t be.” Otabek watches the synthetic pink bristles of the duster wave as he nudges it against the corners of the off white, nicotine yellow wall. Otabek feels his throat tighten. It’s strange. Otabek wants to tell Yuri everything, and he’s tried to explain himself so many times.

“No,” Yuri takes great care to lock eyes with Otabek. “It’s not that there’s all this stuff I don’t want you to know. It’s like, I do.”

Otabek nods. Feels the pink duster pull his hand downward. He knows exactly what it is that Yuri is saying.

Yuri moves over to Nikolai’s armchair. Wedged between the chair, and the end table and the wall, are several large stacks of magazines and papers. Otabek has to assume they’ve accumulated over time. Meant to be thrown out, and never quite made it. Yuri starts pilfering through them and shoving them into the waste basket near Nikolai’s chair.

“Like, I love you, but it’s not like I just wanna be like, “that’s my mom on that sign, every drunk in Moscow knows my dead mom’s face. My dad’s a drunk. He met my mom there, at Tema when she was doing some kind of,” Yuri waves his hands around in the way that he does when he cannot find the words for something. “Promotion? I guess. Free samples and shit.”

Otabek _tries_ to keep his eyes from going wide as saucers at the new information. Yuri’s always been vague and not so forthcoming. It wasn’t hard to infer that his mother had passed, in the way that his voice always trailed off, “Mama,” and his gaze would shift down, to the left, and he’d rapidly change the subject even though he had steered the conversation in that direction in the first place. Otabek knows the tactic well. He’d done it a lot when he spoke of his father with fascination and uncertainty.

They don’t speak again for a long time. Yuri moves into the kitchen after the living room is cleaned. He goes about pitching old containers of spices from the hutch in the kitchen, and starts to scrub the stove down with harsh chemicals that are stored underneath the sink.

“Like thinking about it hurts more than you knowing?” Otabek supplies after a long while. Yuri’s got him sorting through things in the pantry. There’s a decent amount of cans to be thrown out because they expired long ago. Without being instructed, Otabek finds a broom in the small side closet and sweeps first the pantry, and then the rest of the small kitchen.

“Yeah.” Yuri says wrinkling his nose up like he’s working on a sneeze. “Ex- _achoo!”_ Yuri interrupts himself with a sneeze that’s so soft and so sharp, Otabek wonders if it’s truly a sneeze at all. Wonders if he’s ever heard Yuri sneeze in the past year, because surely he would’ve remembered such a strange and lovely sound. “Grandpa’s fucking talking about me with Boris.”

“Hm?” Otabek squints his eyes in confusion.

“Yuuri told me that sneezing means someone is talking about you.” Yuri says it in a tone that’s gruff and certain. Stops cleaning and holds his gaze. Otabek dare not accuse him of superstition.

“Maybe Yuuri is talking about you.”

“Pshh. Doubtful,” Yuri scoffs, and then moves his attention back to the oven. “He’s probably glad we’re gone for a week so him and Viktor can….” Yuri’s voice trails off in disgust. He’s got the trays removed, and the aluminum pans from the burners removed. “Should we care…About having a hard time?”

“I don’t know,” Otabek says too quickly, which means he’s been waiting to be asked this question for quite some time.

“I guess that’s one of those things,” Yuri says with a certain amount of decisiveness in his voice. “No right answer. If we decide it’s a problem, anything we say is forced. Unnatural. If it’s not, then we just act like the dumbass couple. Not talking shit out like we should.”

Otabek feels his lips involuntarily pull together into a pinched line. That “dumbass” couple were married and seemingly happy after all. But there were things about Viktor and Yuuri that Yuri knew that he did not.

“If there’s ever anything specific, just ask,” Yuri says.

“Same to you.”

Yuri dumps everything into a sink of scalding hot water and suds. The oven trays, the range top pans, the glass turntable which resides in the microwave. When he’s finished, Yuri demands, “Beka, stop sweeping,” Yuri’s voice goes upward at the end. Like he would’ve hid an insult at the end of it if it were any other person. Like he’s upset, not at Otabek but maybe himself or the situation.

Yuri used to only call him “Beka” when he wanted sex. Now, it’s got a broader application, it means that he wants _something._

Otabek hopes he can provide whatever it is that Yuri is asking of him.

Otabek props the broom up against the wall. The taupe colored paint is chipped such that off white drywall is exposed beneath. Yuri closes the distance between them, and snakes his arms around his neck. Yuri’s hands are damp. They smell like chemicals. So do his pajamas; a mixture of wood polish, sweat, oven cleaner, and other acrid things, but it doesn’t stop Otabek from burying his nose deep within the juncture Yuri’s neck and shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” but the way Yuri says it, sounds like he isn’t sorry at all. He’s got Otabek pinned to the wall back behind the impossibly small breakfast table and chairs. Otabek’s hands flutter to the silken material of the pajamas.

“What for?” But it’s hard to _really_ care when Yuri is sticky hot from work, and the late morning heat that makes the interior of the house insufferable. On other days they’d long since abandoned the house for the cool, but sparse breeze of outside.   

“I don’t know, but I wanna make it up to you.” Yuri’s lips are chapped. Chapped from sleeping in wheat fields, and standing by open fires down by the creek, drinking Baltika until late at night, and riding the bike through the streets of Moscow until the sun came up. Yuri’s tongue darts across his lips.

Otabek doesn’t care that they’re chapped. They feel good all the same.

“Seems like a sentimental person like you would care.”

“I do,” Otabek supplies too quickly. “Just. I have a hard time with it too. It doesn’t matter,” It’s been since the wheat fields. Three, maybe four days. Which when they’re together, it means lifetimes without. Otabek is acutely aware of the way that Yuri grinds against him, half hard and asking for more. Asking for more with his body when he can’t find the words. It’s no secret, that they use the physical intimacy between them to fill in gaps where words fail.

Words fail so often. Maybe this is the reason why they cannot keep their hands off of each other.

Otabek is more than willing to respond in kind. “You smell like chemicals.”

“You don’t even know how hard it’s been to not sneeze all over your shoulder.”

“Hot.” But at the end of the day, he’s twenty. Yuri’s eighteen. The breeze hits him the right way when he’s with Yuri and he has to ask for a moment alone. Yuri’s got him pinned to the wall, and Otabek knows that Yuri’s exposed and needy.

Otabek unbuttons the top few buttons of Yuri’s pajama top with deft hands.  As he licks and kisses the exposed skin, he makes sure to hold onto Yuri tight when his knees go weak. “Can I…your thighs?”

“Like we’re in Almaty again?” Yuri knows. Knows how to make a simple request shoot straight between his legs and block all coherent thought from his mind. Because there’s a certain block of two or three furious weeks last summer where they did nothing _but_ make each other come.

“Just like we’re in Almaty again,” Otabek’s hands are already down the elastic band of Yuri’s pajama pants. The feeling of silky skin against satiny fabric is good. The promise of Yuri’s thighs against his cock is better. Otabek flips their positions with minimal effort so that Yuri is against the wall, and Otabek is between his thighs.

Yuri’s thighs are damp with sweat. In the mid June air, it’s not surprising. Yuri rips off Otabek’s shirt, just like that. Right there in the kitchen, as if he’s sure there’s no chance of Nikolai coming home. He’d never do something like this at home, and yet he trusts that Yuri knows. Knows how to avoid getting caught despite the fact that he knows that Yuri’s never done this at home before.

Yuri digs little half moon shaped marks into his back.

“Otabek,” Yuri says the syllables slow and thick. The way he always did back before the name “Beka,” flowed off of his tongue just right.

“Yuri, I love you.” Otabek’s thrusts harsh and uneven. He rests his weight against Yuri, and presses their foreheads together.

“I love you too.” Yuri lets Otabek lace one hand with his own and press it against the wall. The other, Yuri strokes in time with Otabek’s thrusts.

Otabek comes between Yuri’s thighs.

Yuri comes into Otabek’s hand.

They don’t shower afterward. Yuri just throws on a new pair of leggings and an old t-shirt and finishes washing the items in the sink. Like nothing happened at all.

So Otabek simply extracts his shirt from behind the dining room chairs. He can feel the hot burn of Yuri’s eyes on him as they finish their tasks. After Yuri deems the cleaning finished, Yuri grabs him with the same chemical laden, pruned fingers. They go down to the creek.

* * *

 

Yuri’s face falls when they reach the creek. Otabek assumes it’s because they aren’t alone. There’s several children there already. Otabek’s seen them there almost every day in the scant few days they’ve been in Moscow. Otabek doesn’t understand. For the first time since they’ve arrived they have the house to themselves. If Yuri wanted to be alone…

Otabek doesn’t understand, but he hasn’t understood much since they arrived in Moscow.

Yuri doesn’t say or do anything right away. Just holds Otabek’s hand too tightly and seethes at the kids. Usually they just leave when they show up, or Yuri insists that they ignore them. Today, Yuri can’t hold in whatever it is he’s been keeping back for the past few days.

“Listen fuckwits,” Yuri covers half of his face with his palm in exasperation. “I don’t know why the fuck you’d ever think this would work. Look,” Yuri has stepped in between them. Between the five people, Yuri plus the children, is a heavy old tackle box that probably weighs as much as the smallest, who looks around four or five. The other three are that strange and indistinguishable age between eight and eleven. The time when gender is marked only by hair length. Facial features become defined in some areas, and stay round in others, so that it is impossible to identify age. “Look at the size of those fish.”

“They’re no bigger than you’re little sausage fingers. So I don’t know why you’d think _this_ hook,” Yuri steps in-between them, and grabs the makeshift fishing pole from them. He holds up a large brass hook with a feather lure on the end. “Would work. Let alone worms. You can’t use worms if they’re bigger than the fish.”

Otabek has witnessed Yuri in these kinds of exchanges before. He’s seen Farida chastise him at the piano. He’s seen Yuri waffle back and forth between playfulness and rage with the Nishigori triplets. It still amuses him, how Yuri refuses to curtail his rough edges, even if for a moment.  It makes something burn at both ends inside Otabek. Makes his skin feel flushed and damp. Makes him want to say all kinds of things that if he were to whisper them to Yuri in hushed tones between the sheets, would get him kicked squarely in the shin, or the gut, or however their bodies landed.

Yuri’s visceral reactions wouldn’t interrupt the way he felt whenever he got to see something private. Something that Yuri wouldn’t share with anyone else.

“Stop fucking staring like an idiot Altin, we need to go to the house and get something.”

Yuri makes him haul his grandfather’s tackle box. Yuri carries stale bread from the painted over wooden hutch in the kitchen.

Yuri makes him tie tiny hooks no bigger than his fingernail to clear nylon string.

“What are you doing?” asks the older girl with sand colored hair, and freckles in every shade of yellow, beige, brown, and black upon her face.

“Fixing this.” Yuri ties those strings to small twigs and broken branches.

“I wanna use the lure,” except the way the boy stumbles over the syllables,  it sounds like, “ewer,” or a violent half syllable that fell out of his mouth.

“Well you can’t. It’s too big.” Then Yuri puts small pieces of bread on the hooks. “Alright assholes. Don’t fucking stab yourselves with the hooks.”

“Thank you Yuri!” They echo in a disjointed chorus.

The flow of the stream is slow. Soon, fish no longer than the palm of his hand come to the hooks. Which means the children present the lines, and the fish to Otabek and Yuri.

Otabek’s stomach does flip flops when a child presents him with a green gray fish on the line.

Yuri interjects, “let me do that. Otabek’s still learning how.” Without further explanation, Yuri takes the small fish in his hand, pulls out the hook, and throws it back in.

Strange, Otabek expected to be teased. It’s no secret that seeing these kinds of things make him uneasy. When things that should be in the water hit air they gasp and writhe and move in ways that wordlessly scream suffering. It makes his skin crawl. When Yuri gets things from the butcher shop, when crimson hemoglobin spills from fresh cuts of meat, every last bit of it reminds him that they’re soft and vulnerable and mortal.

_“So,”_ Yuri is presented with another fish, so he doesn’t meet Otabek’s fleeting gaze which desperately tries to look at Yuri and avoid the hook. “ _You wanna know all about my troubled past?”_ Yuri says it in near perfect Kazhak, presumably so as to speak freely in front of the children which now demand his near constant attention.

Otabek feels his mouth pull into an involuntary frown. He doesn’t want to be upset. It’s just the way that Yuri phrases it. He makes it sound insincere. He did want to know more about Yuri, and Nikolai was right. They have time. Otabek could subsist off of catching these rare and beautiful facets of Yuri in the various twists and turns of life and light for forever.

_“That’s an oversimplification,”_ he responds. It is, but it isn’t. Which is how Yuri usually reappraises things. “ _Your Kazakh is getting much better,”_ he adds as an afterthought.

“Look, you take him off it’s not hard Peter,” Yuri holds the pole just so, and makes the little boy jerk the hook out of the fish’s mouth. His movements, unlike Yuri’s are jerky and sloppy. Otabek watches as the little boy tears a bigger hole in the paper-thin tissue of the fish’s mouth.

Otabek’s mouth feels watery, in the way that it only does before you get sick.

“Now throw this fucker back,” he says when the boy looks at him with big wide eyes once the past is completed.

Yuri often complains. Complains that books, even the interesting ones, are difficult to pay attention to. Or he talks about how he’s glad he’s done with school while he hovers over Farida’s shoulder and stares at her math homework. Yuri doesn’t give himself enough credit. He’s brilliant in ways that Otabek stumbles over in French and English. He’s so very adept at picking up languages, as if they’re little germs in the air that infect him and grow until he’s fluent. It’s beautiful. Even the syllables that catch, and the words that slide back into Russian when he can’t find the words.

Yuri wipes his hands on his black leggings. They’re stained with dirt, and fish slime, and bits of dried grass, and all sorts of things from spending so much time outside doing absolutely nothing at all. “I fell into this creek once.” He slips back into Russian for a moment. “When it was winter. Sledding down the embankment,” Yuri gestures with his head to the trodden over grass that faded into the dirt and lead down to the creek bed. “Grandpa always told me to go around and over to the hill on the other side of the complex but,” Yuri shrugs. Closes his glass green eyes for a moment and exhales sharply, like the memory has to be extracted from deep within. “The neighbor heard me screaming and pulled me out.”

Yuri’s eyes don’t rise to meet his. He keeps them directed at the children who stand on the creek’s edge and screech each and every time they try to take a fish off the line themselves.

Otabek mulls over what Yuri’s just said. “Is that why you were sick so much?”  Yuri’s mentioned being sick a lot as a child, and how his mother wanted him to try ice skating to get more exercise. Maybe it’s the reason why Yakov seems to worry about his stamina even though Yuri’s greatest competition seems to be himself.

“Yeah.” Yuri supplies. 

“I wasn’t upset the other night. It’s just I don’t think the old man really wanted me talking about that kind of stuff with him there.” Yuri lets out a long sigh.

“I understand. When we were in Almaty…”

Otabek tries to sneak his hand into Yuri’s but Yuri moves his hand away. “Did you not just almost throw up at watching me touch those fucking fish? Something tells me you don’t wanna hold my fucking fish gut stained hand.”

When he put it that way…

“ _Yeah, so what’s with the medal?”_ Yuri switches back to Kazhakh.

“Hm?”

“ _the one in the…”_ Yuri stumbles over the word. “Tree.” He completes in Russian. Otabek isn’t sure why. The children are a somewhat appropriate distance away. There’s no need for Yuri to do this, unless he just wants to impress him, which of course is highly likely.  

“Lots of pressure,” Otabek says in English. He opts to grab Yuri by the waist. He’s certain that beneath the chemicals, and the creek dirt, and the sweat. There’s no fish slime there.

“I had a very difficult time after PyeongChang,” he says softly. Still in English.

“Oh, the ol’ Olympic medal dead parent thing,” Yuri responds in English. His tone is casual. Like it’s something that _was_ a problem, but isn’t anymore. But his eyes are furrowed, his shoulders are hunched. It makes Otabek pull him close, in front of him so their hips grind awkwardly together at the sides. “Combined with the pressure that it’s all down hill from here.”

“Yeah.” Otabek exhales sharply through his nose.

“So you didn’t get gold in PyeongChang. So you nail your Four Continents medal to a tree,” Yuri raises his eyebrows. Like he knows he’s extracting something important. Like he doubts his ability to do it with care, but will insist on trying anyway. Knows that Otabek will let him.

“I realized I was in love with you too,” Otabek swallows the lump in his throat. Saying it is somehow more difficult than telling Yuri he loved him for the first time. “I was afraid.” Even the mask of English won’t hide it.

“Oh,” Yuri laughs. “So like, pressure that it’s all down hill from here, combined with a nice bit of gay panic.”

Otabek opens his mouth to respond, but the words don’t come out. His expression stays stuck somewhere between a smile and slack jawed horror. The sharpness in which Yuri can twist-meld-manipulate words is startling.

“That’s what they call it Otabek.” Yuri takes great care to lock eyes with Otabek and roll them without properly explaining who _they_ are. “I guess something like that happened to me. Kind of. I didn’t give a fuck about what my mom would think. We got along really well,” but the tone in which Yuri says it indicates that maybe he did care, and maybe went through the same kind of deliberation and reappraisal that he did. “I saw Viktor and Yuuri practicing lifts once just goofing off…” His voice trails off slightly. “I’d caught them before. Kissing, and cuddling in the hot spring even before they really knew what they were doing. But there was nothing sexual about seeing them do lifts. Just two people. Two people I was really jealous of.”

Otabek doesn’t say anything. More importantly, he doesn’t need to say anything. There’s a lot that he and Yuri may still need to say between each other, but Otabek knows that Yuri is okay with the spaces in-between. Whether they’re seconds, or minutes, or hours in between, whether the conversation ends naturally and the pauses or smooth, or they cut off abruptly.

Yuri mentioned his mother. Didn’t say anything about Nikolai. “What about your grandfather?”

“Oh,” Yuri scoffs. “He’s old fashioned, but he gets it. He asks about you on the phone a lot, but he’d deny it if you asked.”

“I wouldn’t ask.”

“I could be worried about it.” Yuri says. Worries his lip between his teeth as if to reify his point. “Worried that the two of you don’t get along, but…” Yuri pecks Otabek lightly on the mouth, like an afterthought. “You’re both really alike. So it’s stupid to worry about it too much.”

“You think it’ll work out?” Otabek asks. It’s something that’s worried him since they arrived.

“Yeah. I do.” Yuri responds after Otabek’s raked his hand across Yuri’s middle, his hips, his forearms, and all the places he can get away with touching freely out in the open.

Otabek tries not to think about Yuri’s skin, icy and blue from winter creek water.

“What about Bejing then?” Yuri asks. “If Korea gave you so much trouble?”

“I’m not sure yet.” It’s the truth. He hasn’t made up his mind. It hasn’t stopped him from considering his options. “Maybe it’ll be easier then. It’s still two years away.” It’s the truth, but it doesn’t stop Otabek from swallowing thickly. When he and Yuri are together there’s little talk of the future. Just the promise of it. Like they both know that the routines Viktor and Yuuri choreographed for them imply a new season, a season after Otabek leaves St. Petersburg.

It doesn’t mean they have to acknowledge it, and so for the last month and a half or so, they haven’t.

“St. Petersburg is good though right?”

“More than good.” Otabek knows the question is heavy and laden with many, many others. He’s just going to have to trust that the rest will be revealed in time.

Yuri cocks his head back toward the creek. “What are the chances these fuckers will drown if we leave?”

“They’re down here every day.” The creek banks are dry, heaving, and cracked like they ache for rain. The water smells old and stagnant. It hasn’t rained in awhile. Otabek and Yuri have seen the children knee deep in the creek trying to catch tadpoles.

“Alright then.” Yuri snaps the metal tackle box that rests at their feet shut. “If they're not going to die, let’s go take a shower. While we still have the house to ourselves.”

 


	5. Cause & Effect

“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” Otabek once found this quote written in his mother’s long eloquent handwriting in the jacket of a copy of _Self Reliance and Other Essays_ that he found going through his father’s things.

Otabek wonders if it was circumstance or cause and effect which made him bring _that_ specific book all the way to St. Petersburg, and then bring it all the way to Moscow with them.

He spent a great deal of time in Moscow tucked in the corner of the oversized sofa, or out on the concrete patio which served as a porch staring at the quote and wondered if this was his mother’s acerbic version of a love note or a valentine to his father.

In Moscow, toward the end of their stay, he comes to understand the quote and what its actual implications are.

They have to go to the market.  They buy potatoes so that Yuri can finally make oroshka, as well as several other things that were needed around the house.

It’s a claustrophobic endeavor. There are ten or twelve isles packed tightly together in a space that’s no bigger than the first few rooms in Nikolai’s home. Among these isles is a butcher counter, a cooler with dairy, and a burgeoning section of produce.

Otabek spends a great deal of time knocking boxes and canisters off of the bottoms of shelves and swearing under his breath as he stops every few feet to pick the items up off the floor.

The store is dirty, which is something that he’s unaccustomed to at home. He often ducks into small hole in the wall shops and picks up the bare minimum to get through the next few days. However, neglect at this market is wholly apparent. The floor is stained white with salt deposits from winter and dirtied by the muddied brown mixture of rain water and grime from spring. The cans on the shelf are dusty, so much so that Otabek checks the expiration dates to ensure that they aren’t older than the items they just threw away.

Yuri had him drag Nikolai’s folding metal shopping cart along side them. They’re halfway through the compact isles, and already it’s almost full. Tea, flour, rice, pasta, produce and cans, Yuri has thought to replace all of the things that they threw out from the pantry the other day. “So he won’t have to get more on his own,” Yuri explains.

Otabek doesn’t understand. His own parents are quite capable of caring for themselves. He’s not yet had to consider caring for them when they are older, nor has he considered the best way to do so when he lives on the other side of the country.

Nevertheless, he holds onto the items that won’t fit into the pushcart when Yuri has it stacked full of items without question. There are many things that will be easy to prepare long after they’ve gone back to St. Petersburg. He unloads everything onto the conveyer belt while Yuri chats with the clerk without question.

Yuri speaks to the lady at the cashier in rapid fire Russian. The pace and the tone of the conversation doesn’t just imply small talk, but knowing and intimacy. The cashier is at least fifty or so years old. Has she known Yuri since he was young? They talk of Nikolai, and the apartment complex that looms over the house, and the rising crime rates in the neighborhood, and Otabek assumes that she does.

“That’s Boris’ ex wife,” Yuri explains when they exit the shop.

“Hm?” He’s heard the name within the past few days, but can’t quite place where.

“Boris. Grandpa’s friend. They do old man shit like play bridge and complain about how much they ache.”

“Ah,” Otabek responds. He was grateful for their day alone, even if it was consumed largely with chores and watching Yuri take fish off of hooks. He was grateful for the chance to know Yuri better.

“Beka,” Yuri catches sight of a newsstand across the street. “Can you hold the stuff?” but he’s already handing the plastic shopping bags that won’t fit into the push carts into his hand. “I’m gonna go get the old man an evening paper, and maybe some pipe tobacco? Like he thinks that I think he quit. I know he just quit cigarettes, Beka. I can smell the other on his clothes.”

Otabek raises a single brow. The house smells sure, but it’s an old and lived in smell.

“Your right, he’ll be weirded out,” Yuri decides. “Just the paper. Maybe some magazines. He’ll probably like that.”

Before Otabek can properly respond, Yuri’s giving him a peck on the cheek, and then darting out between parked cars and across the street.

Otabek understands that he’s supposed to stay here and wait while Yuri gets what he needs from the stand. He props the push cart against the façade of the store, and then leans against the window. Absentmindedly he flicks through several snapchats from Farida, as well as a few from Leo de Iglasia, and Guang Hong Ji, the latter of which he wouldn’t mind so much if there weren’t so many of them on a daily basis.

“Excuse me.”

Otabek doesn’t look up from his phone at first. The voice is unfamiliar. It may very well not be talking to him.

“Excuse me, would you happen to have any money to spare? I’m trying to put some money on my card so that I can get to Mayakovskaya.”

Otabek tears his glance away from his phone. The man flashes his metro card as if to prove that’s why he’s actually asking for money. The man has brown black hair that’s heavily interspersed with thin white hairs. He has and a two toned gray black beard that he knows he’s seen before, alongside deep set brown eyes.

His face is thin and angular. His build is impossibly small and wire like, and Otabek finds it impossible that a man such as this could survive a harsh Moscow winter without being ripped away by the bitter and unforgiving winds.

The fact that he is middle aged must act as some kind of proof that he can survive the winter. However, his age is difficult to determine. The lines in his face are set far too deeply for him to be young. Simultaneously, they’re so harshly imprinted, it is difficult to believe that they are the result of natural aging.

 The man is wearing a blue and green plaid jacket despite the fact that it’s late June. It’s clear that he was uncomfortable. He seemed to perspire just standing there talking to Otabek. The jacket, his shirt, and his trousers, all of them seemed quite worn, but none of the items were overtly dirty.

Overall, it made for a very strange image. Otabek cocked an eyebrow, not quite knowing what to think or what was best to do. Otabek opts for the path of least resistance. He reaches for his wallet and pulls out a few small bills.

“Beka,” Yuri calls from behind. “You shouldn’t just give people money.” A hand rests on his shoulder, and Otabek turns just in time to see Yuri’s expression fall while his eyes simultaneously go wide.  “Because they’ll spend it on-” Yuri’s voice cracks, and his hand falls away from Otabek’s shoulder.

Otabek’s gaze shifts to the man who had approached him. In a split second Otabek sees his expression. It’s the kind of wide eyed and fearful look that is that is given when an outcome is theoretically possible. Possible, but highly implausible. Clearly, this man never anticipated this outcome when he approached Otabek.  

Somehow the man is paler and more sallow looking than before. It’s the kind of look that is given when you see a ghost from the past, or a long buried demon.  

Or perhaps, in the split seconds where his gaze met Yuri’s the man understood that he was the ghost. He was the demon. And much to his misfortune, he’d been spotted by the living.

The tension between the three of them is unbearable. Otabek is acutely aware of the weight and the pressure of years, if not decades of things left unsaid. There are a thousand broken promises scattered about on the sidewalk between them. Each one is undefined, but somehow palpable between this man and Yuri.

Otabek wonders, if he’s just imagining things when he finally places the familiarity of the two toned beard. The kindness in those deep set and jaundiced dark brown eyes, reminds him very much of Nikolai.

“Look,” Yuri’s voice goes gruff. It’s not angry the way that his voice usually darkens whenever he’s about to rebuff something that he doesn’t want to deal with. This gruffness acts as a paper thin mask. The grit that is stored there is a last line of defense for whenever Yuri is afraid.

Otabek’s heard the shaky tone before, but it terrifies him each time. There’s nothing on this Earth that should be frightening for Yuri Plisetsky.  If there is anything on Earth that Yuri cannot handle, Otabek should be able to. Yuri deserves that much. Otabek feels the blood drain from his face. He never imagined that he could feel _so_ powerless.

 “Do you want some food?” Yuri gestures to the overfilled cart. “Or money?” and in a move that directly contradicts what he’d just been chastising Otabek for moments ago, Yuri reaches for his own wallet.

“No,” the stranger responds. He hands the crumpled bills back to Otabek. “It’s fine. I’m fine. I don’t really need anything.”

“We don’t really care,” Yuri replies. He can hear the way that Yuri emphasizes _we_ as if it’s somehow easier to say than a singular, _I._ Otabek can tell that Yuri very much cares.

“I’m clean,” the man offers the information too quickly. It makes the hair stand up on the back of Otabek’s neck. As sick as it all makes him feel, it makes him want to wedge himself even deeper into this very raw and very personal moment. He wants to take the other man by the shoulders and shake him. He wants to ask him what gave him the right to upset Yuri?

“Then why do you fucking reek?” Yuri fires back rapidly, as if he’d been expecting this particular line of conversation. “Why even bring it up?” Yuri’s speech is rapid and bordering on hysterical. Yuri turns rapidly on his heel and heads in the opposite direction of the house. Otabek follows him without question.

“Yuri.”

Yuri isn’t flat out running, but he’s walking too quickly for Otabek to keep up properly while he drags the shopping basket behind him.

“Yuri.”

Yuri’s mop of unruly golden hair spills in front of his face. Otabek has never seen Yuri this distraught before, but he suspects that Yuri’s face is red and pinched. He suspects that glassy tears have welled up in the corner of his eyes and threaten to spill down his face at a moment’s notice.

“Yuri.”

There’s very little that Otabek can do, and even less than he can say. It’s a situation that’s extremely foreign to him. He’s only working off assumptions, and all the things that Yuri’s never said about his family or his past.

“Yuri,” Otabek repeats his name again. He leaves the basket in the middle of the sidewalk, and closes the distance between them with wide steps. He catches the tender flesh of Yuri’s forearm with a grip that’s too tight, and pulls him close.

Yuri doesn’t resist at all.

With his hands splayed across Yuri’s back, Otabek can feel Yuri’s breath. It’s rapid, but even in a way that suggests that he isn’t crying. It’s impossible to tell with Yuri’s face buried in his shoulder. Yuri’s hands twist and pinch his t-shirt, and Otabek interprets this excess energy as the strange and dangerous kind of rage that Yuri isn’t quite sure what to do with when he isn’t on the ice.

“It’s alright Yuri,” but Otabek has no idea if it really is.

“Beka,” Yuri’s voice is shockingly calm despite the tension he carries in his body. “You know who that was right?”

“I’m fairly certain.” Yuri has reluctantly talked about his mother, but never so much as mentioned his father. Otabek has had a lifetime of stringing together clues, and context, and scraps of raw emotion until the full picture comes into view.

“Of all the shitty times to see him,” Yuri’s voice falters a bit.

“Doesn’t seem as if there would be a good time,” Otabek offers lamely. He doesn’t understand. However, he’s intimately familiar with the scraped raw feeling of being exposed over and over again in front of someone that you love. Quite simply, it is exhausting.  

Otabek wants nothing more than to scrub the feeling away. Take the brunt of it for Yuri, but he doesn’t know how. So, he simply holds him tight for a very long time. People pass on the side walk. People stare. People shoot glances when Yuri makes ugly little half sobs into his shoulder, yet Otabek keeps holding on.

What more can he do?

“I think the last time was right before I left for PyeongChang,” Yuri pulls back from Otabek’s shoulder and furrows his brow. “Grandpa let him come over for bit for tea. It was awful,” Yuri confesses.

Otabek nods, and rubs his hands down Yuri’s back for lack of a better response.

“He said he was proud. That really pissed me off you know?”

Otabek can’t say that he does.

“To me, pride means that you’re involved somehow. That you did something good, or you contributed, and that you’re happy about it.” Yuri sniffles. “What the shit did he do?”

Otabek is used to people he’s never met telling him that they are proud. They feel personally invested in his success because of a shared nationality, and his ability to do something that his countrymen have been unable to do in the past.

It’s always unnerving to have someone that he does not know say that they are proud of him, but Otabek has never considered their level personal involvement as a factor. It’s the knowing smile, and the tenderness in their eyes, and the firm handshakes that really bother him. Each of these actions imply friendship and familiarity. Often times these moments are the first and last interactions that they will ever have.  

Yuri disentangles himself from Otabek’s vice tight grasp. He goes for the shopping basket and drags it forward. He talks rapidly while he walks. “Grandpa can feel pride, he took me to practice and always supported me. Mama can feel that way. She always wanted me to do well. _You_ can feel pride, because you make me want to do better. Not him,” Yuri decides. His voice is heavy and full of finality. 

* * *

Yuri throws the cold items hastily into the refrigerator. He pushes around Otabek and throws the dry items into the pantry without so much as organizing them. His movements are rapid, and reckless, such that Yuri doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“What do you need?” Otabek asks when it becomes very clear that making okoroshka is the furthest thing from Yuri’s racing mind. He can help Yuri burn off the excess energy. Together they can channel it into something more blunted and less dangerous.

As if waiting for the word, Yuri snaps the keys to the bike up off the dinner table.

“A good distraction.”

Otabek is surprised when Yuri tells him in a gruff tone, “no, you drive,” and thrusts the keys into his hands. Otabek responds in kind by doing all the reckless things that Yuri likes. He goes over the speed limit on the highway, which causes Yuri to stifle an undignified shriek. He guns the engine and passes cars in the fast lane. He makes sure that every head turns to watch as they speed past.  He takes turns to quickly so that the bike dips low, and Yuri is forced to hold onto him.

Otabek knows just as well as Yuri that you have to go fast in order to be properly distracted. The wind has to hit your face just right, fly up through your nose, and whip back to the very back of your head to make you forget that your head can so much as hold a single thought.

Whenever that happens, there are no problems. No answers either. Only the present.

It works like a charm until Otabek decides to drive them back towards the city center. Evening traffic is awful, and Otabek’s initial idea of zipping past the Red Square ruined.

“Beka,” Yuri tugs at his jacket sleeve at a stoplight. “We’re near my old home rink. Can we go?”

Otabek has never been in the habit of denying Yuri anything. He’s not about to start now.

The rink is nothing like Yuri’s home rink in St. Petersburg. Where Yuri’s current home rink is modern and filled with smooth angles and sleek appearances, this one is older. Routine maintenance seems like an afterthought. People will come whether the rink is kept in repair or not.

The rink is filled with people, because it’s the start of public skate hours. There are people who have ducked inside for a brief respite from the heat. There are couples on dates who shuffle awkwardly hand in hand on the ice. There are plenty of younger skaters who are eager to make their debut in juniors. They stumble through routines under the gaze of exasperated coaches, and desperately try not to run into the amateur skaters who can barely move around the rink.

Their rented skates are woefully dull, and the ice is filled with deep ridges despite the fact that the sign on the door indicates that public skate hours have just began.

Otabek never thought he’d feel like a stranger on the ice, but the combination of only doing light off ice training with Yuri since they arrived in Moscow, and the public skate sends a shiver down his spine.

“Feels fucking weird doesn’t it?” Yuri says out loud what he’d been thinking in a way that only Yuri can.

“Yeah,” Otabek admits. “I can’t remember the last time I went to a public skate.”

“I forgot how fucking awesome rented skates are.” Yuri huffs. “What are you thinking about?” Yuri slides his hand into his, and together they listen to the awkward _shunk shunk_ noise of dull skates against worn ice.

“Aren’t I supposed to ask you that?” At the very least, it was his job to ask if Yuri was properly distracted.

“Yeah,” Yuri supplies. “That’s why I had to beat you to it.”

“Hm,” Otabek responds. “I was thinking about when I first started to take skating seriously. My lessons always coincided with this girl who was really reckless on the ice. Going too fast, and skating too close. I couldn’t stand her.”

“Kamilya?” Yuri supplies.

“Yeah,” Otabek chuckles. “She always had this ratty purple scarf that was always askew. Like it was about to fall off.”

“So you’ve known this girl for forever, and all you remember about your best friend are her clothes?”

“Kamilya isn’t my best friend,” Otabek interrupts. “You are.”

“Oh my god,” Yuri huffs. Otabek doesn’t miss the smile that flutters across his face. He’s always willing to lay it on a little thick, but he’s thankful to see that it’s working. It’s selfishly comforting to know that even just for a moment, he can quell Yuri’s anxiety.

“So, what are you thinking about?”  

“Whether or not I should tell Grandpa,” Yuri answers quickly. “They don’t talk…Well, I don’t think they do. It was a big deal when he came to the house last time.”

Otabek nods. He understands well enough all the things that are assumed when you live away from home. Dozens of things get taken for granted, and then later turn out to be untrue. When he came home from the States he was shocked to find that Farida had changed dramatically. She talked back to the au pair, and her ability to speak French surpassed his own.  She selected very difficult pieces for them to play together on the piano, so that he had to run through them several times before he got them right. Before, he’d be able to play through whatever she chose on sight alone because her skills were so limited. He tells Yuri all of this as they skate, and Yuri seems to nod along as he explains.

“What else?”

“Thinking about how shitty it is that you had to see that.”

“Don’t worry about that,” which isn’t exactly what Otabek means to convey. He’d rather say that he does not think less of Yuri, nor does he pitty him. That he doesn’t want Yuri to experience any form of emotional discomfort. But it doesn’t come out that way.

“Not worried,” Yuri’s hand tightens in his own. “Just,” he sighs. “Timing is a bitch huh?”

Otabek feels like the conversations they had in the living room and out by the creek were lifetimes ago.

“I wish I could do more,” Otabek confesses. It’s unclear whether or not saying these words will actually do anything at all to assuage Yuri’s anger and anxiety. “You shouldn’t have to deal with that.” Otabek squeezes his hand. Makes them stop and spin on the ice. He rests his palm against Yuri’s cheek. It’s cold, although he can’t tell if it’s Yuri’s cheek or his own hand that is colder. They’d come in off the street without jackets or gloves.

“Well, it’s not like I’m doing it alone,” Yuri huffs and closes his eyes. Otabek is relieved to have a moment’s reprieve from Yuri’s gaze, which forces the air out of the room, and makes him feel light headed.  “It just doesn’t seem fair that someone can just show up out of thin air and rip all of those feelings out. Stuff that I worked so hard to put away. It’s like it ruins the rest of our time in Moscow.” Yuri screws up his face.

“Hm,” Otabek nods. Unfair but wholly human.

“Which was already kind of fucked.”

Otabek reaches for Yuri’s hands once more and squeezes them tightly. “Yuri.” He tries to sound calm, collected, unfazed.

“Look Beka it’s true. Something’s fucking wrong, and I don’t know how to fucking fix it.”

Otabek reaches for Yuri and tries to pull him close. Yuri pushes away. There’s a clear patch of ice from where they stand near the goal line to the other side. Yuri skates a tight diagonal and does a back counter.

Otabek catches the glassy, near tears look of anger and desperation in his eyes in a split second before Yuri launches into a combination jump. A double triple that wouldn’t be impressive in competition, but given the circumstance is very impressive.

In that moment, Otabek’s breath catches in his throat. It becomes painfully clear it isn’t personal when Yuri pushes him away. It may be nothing short of a miracle that he’s even able to get close at all.

* * *

Yuri doesn’t know what to do with the tension that builds and mounts with each passing day in Moscow. He’s used to letting those emotions: the anger, and the fear, and the uncertainty boil over until he can make something useful and beautiful of it.

It seems much more complex than that, especially since the market.

It had been Otabek’s idea to spend their last night in Moscow out in the city together. Yuri accepted the invitation, simply because he lacked a proper excuse to decline. The old man was always watching opera and ballet and all kinds of Otabek worthy artsy shit on Russia-K. So, why shouldn’t they take the old man to see something at the Bolshoi? Grandpa _would_ like getting another little glimpse into what they did and what they liked. Wouldn’t he?

It might have been a fantastic idea, but then he fucking ruined it by running his mouth.

Of course Grandpa bitched, and griped, in the way that indicated he was secretly not so secretly thrilled. He’s lived in Moscow almost his whole life, and he has never been despite having an obvious fascination for the stuff. Yuri believes he wouldn’t be where he is today if Nikolai didn’t secretly love humming loudly over static filled arias that burst out from the radio speakers. He wouldn’t be half the dancer he is today if gramps didn’t spend so much time watching the petite dancers on Russia K.

Yuri takes the brooch in hand, soft pink rhinestone gems that trap and reflect light, but look milky all at once. The pin has little yellow enamel flowers, and bits of gold trapped between the jewels. Yuri looked through the dozens of pieces in his mother’s jewelry box, and decided that this one looked best with his suit.  He’s wearing the gray Armani one from Viktor and Yuuri’s wedding.  He didn’t want to pack it, but he’s glad that Otabek, fancy bastard that he is, talked him into bringing it.

 Yuri holds the lapel steady and leans into the vanity mirror. With his free hand, he stabs the pin of the brooch into the fabric, and tries to not hear Viktor’s mother hen voice in the back of his mind, “Yurio, that’s Armani. Yurio, that brooch is tacky.” What does he know? Fucking label whore.

Yuri sits back against the bench grabs at the worn yellow satin material on the upholstered part of the bench and rocks slightly. It looks good, but he shouldn’t wear it out. He should probably just put it back with the rest. But it can stay for a little longer…At least until he brushes his hair.

Yuri reaches for the brush. The handle is wooden, and carved in it is his grandmother’s name. Not grandpa’s wife’s name. His mother’s mother’s name. Strange, how these things ended up at grandpa’s house and lived there for decades. The bristles are old and yellowed, but Yuri endures for old time sake. He can’t remember the last time he sat at the circle mirrored vanity and combed his hair, but doing so makes him feel like he’s slid back in time.

For a moment he honestly and truly believes that mama will walk into the room and comb all the knots out of his hair. Each flick of the wrist so soft and so subtle, he wouldn’t feel a thing. Then, she’d move on to her own routine. Lipstick, and powder, she’d playfully pat the bridge of his nose with her powder puff.

Yuri slides the brush from scalp to tip and back again. Then he puts the brush down and reaches for a golden tube of lipstick. He opens the tube and inhales deeply. It’s old and it’s melted, but it still smells like her.

Yuri puts down the tube, his eyes return to the mirror, and they go wide like the chipped saucers they keep under old teacups in the cupboard. Grandpa is standing in the door frame of the room watching, and Yuri can see him from where he sits.

“You look just like your mother Yurochka.”

Yuri laughs. It’s small and acrid, and spills out of his mouth before he can really think about what it means. “You’re not the first to say that recently Grandpa.”

“It’s true,” Nikolai joins him, and rests a single graying hand on his shoulder.

Yuri can feel the acidic taste of something he should just keep to himself rise to the back of his throat. He hasn’t said a goddamn thing about seeing his father in the city the other day.  In part because he doesn’t want to give that asshole any more power. Yuri doesn’t want him to take anymore of his already precious time in Moscow away. Not to mention, seeing a ghost was nothing in comparison to the furtive glances, and the looks that Yuri knows are disapproving. “Why do you dislike Otabek?” They’ve made it so many days in Moscow; they’ll be leaving soon. He really should’ve just let it go. Not said anything.

Grandpa didn’t openly distain Otabek, but he could just _tell_ when things weren’t right.

“Ah,” The hand on his shoulder tightens. “Yura,” two pet names in just as many minutes. It was a dead giveaway really. Yuri watches from the mirror as Nikolai sinks onto the corner of the bed. The other day he made Otabek help him take the dusty covers off and wash them. They were so dusty, that Yuri entertained the idea that was the first time they’d been washed in possibly…. _five?_ How could it be five years already?

“Always with those books. He’s quite smart isn’t he?”

“Very,” Yuri barks too quickly.

“A little dangerous no? With the motor bike. But very quiet. So quiet, that he’s not so dangerous at all.” Nikolai pauses, as if he’s choosing his next words carefully. “I like him quite a bit. It’s difficult Yura. He reminds me quite a bit of Sasha.” Immediately his eyes go wide as if he realizes, that was _not_ the correct way to end the thought.

“That’s a very shitty thing to say,” Yuri says as calmly as one can through clenched teeth. The name makes him shake with rage more than seeing his weathered face outside the market did.

“I understand why you would believe that,” Nikolai responds with a sigh and a heave as he rocks upward, and stands back up again. “I used to love him very much you know.”

“Then why is your house filled up with mom’s stuff?” Yuri grabs the brush again, desperate for something to do with his hands, lest he lash out completely at one of the people he loves the most. “Is it easier to pretend you lost a _good_ daughter?” He brushes his hair in rapid strokes that catch and tangle, and he just keeps dragging his hand downward ripping the knots out. “Then realize you have a shit son?”

Yuri slams the brush onto the shiny lacquer of the vanity. He exhales in a long jagged sigh. His hands are shaking, and his vision is tunneled. The feeling is not unlike those first few performances during his debut season. Except right now he’s unable without to cultivate that rage into something more meaningful.

It feels awful, but Yuri doesn’t know what he expected. It’s stupid. So fucking stupid, but Yuri honest to god believes that it would hurt less if grandpa actually disliked Otabek as a person. Somehow it’s harder to confront the fact that he’s fallen madly and stupidly in love with someone that reminds Nikolai of his fucking father. 

Yuri stomps out of the room. “I’m going to have Otabek braid my hair.”

* * *

“The brooch looks good,” Otabek says finally. He drags the comb back to the crown of Yuri’s hair and parts it to the side. “You should keep it on.”

Yuri tugs absent mindedly at his lapel. “Maybe.” He leans back into Otabek, who sits on the untouched twin bed in Yuri’s room while Yuri sits on the floor. Otabek has dropped everything to help him put his hair into a tight delicate plait that wrapped around his head. Otabek’s been practicing ever since his operation. Yuri can’t say that he minds. “You think so?”

“Hm,” Otabek hums in response.

Yuri can feel the sharp dig of bobby pins at his scalp.  

“There,” Otabek says with a squeeze to his shoulder. “Go look and make sure everything is even.”

Yuri whips his phone out of his pocket and turns on the front facing camera. “Looks great.” Carefully, he leans back into Otabek’s lap. “Thank you Beka.”

Otabek leans into kiss him. Otabek gives chaste pecks on the mouth that barely make a sound. “I only did it so you’d help me with my cufflinks.” Otabek’s mouth tugs into the half smile that never fails to make Yuri melt.

Yuri threads one of the silver stems through the button in Otabek’s shirt sleeve. “You should be able to do this by now.”

“I can,” Otabek confesses. “They just look smother when you do it.”

“These the ones you got in Prague?” It was such a strange impulse buy for Otabek, but they’d wandered into an antique store, and Otabek walked out with a vintage pair of cufflinks.

“Yes,” Otabek responds. “What are the chances of this going well?” Otabek locks eyes with Yuri. His mouth is drawn into a tight thin line. Yuri can see the way the muscles in his jaw are clenched tight.

“You mean, you want to know what happened?” The house is small.  Otabek could hear swearing, and Yuri’s raised voice.  He knows that something dark and blemished has been growing ever since they arrived in Moscow.

“Beka,” Yuri sighs. “I said some shit I shouldn’t have.” Yuri looks to the doorframe of his room. “So, not good,” Yuri admits.

Otabek has experienced a great many strange things since he arrived in Russia alongside Yuri. Foods that should never be placed in gelatins, staring down fish freshly pulled from the creek, and an abundance of fire that he hadn’t anticipated.

Nothing could prepare him for the strangeness of their evening at the Bolshoi.

Otabek made a call to his mother, and his mother made a call to his cousin, and his cousin made a call to god knows where, but it meant that they would be seated in a friend of a friend’s box. The seats were magnificent, not too high up and just stage left, they could see everything quite well.

Otabek would’ve much rather seen an opera, he supposed that it was no small feat that he got Yuri to attend this kind of event. He’d settle for ballet just this once.  

Otabek had rented a car, because one of Nikolai’s initial protests was that they couldn’t drive the tin can to the Bolshoi. Nothing too flashy, but something that they could hand the keys over to a valet to without feeling self-conscious or batting an eye.

The thing was, Otabek wouldn’t have felt self-conscious handing the keys to the tin can over to the valet at all. They had the kind of seats that could not be bought. They were only acquired, and that would be made apparent when they handed over the keys and flashed their tickets.

Then all of the tension and stiffness that began at the house intensified in the rigid and unyielding silence in the car ride over, and culminated during the ballet.

Yuri had Otabek sit between him and Nikolai.

It made Otabek tug at his collar and want to loosen his tie in a way that hadn’t happened since he was very, very young.

He’s used to Nikolai grunting questions at him over the low hum of the television about the goings on of the opera or ballet, whichever happened to be on. They never come. Nikolai’s eyes never leave the stage, but the faint bemused smile that always rests on his face when he watches on television is absent.

He’s also used to Yuri’s presence whenever they have to sit still for too long. Yuri usually places a hand on his thigh, or there is often the subtle pressure of Yuri leaning into him when he grows bored, or Yuri will simply lace his long elegant fingers with his own.

Otabek can only suppose that Yuri doesn’t feel comfortable with that level of closeness in front of Nikolai yet….

Then he remembers the stolen kiss to his temple at the bar. They’ve spent almost every night sitting too close to one another on the couch. And of course, the door to Yuri’s room is often propped wide open. Each morning the sight of the untouched bed, and the unruly nest of blankets on the floor is unavoidable.

Otabek watches the dancers flit across stage. He wonders if Yuri will tell him what transpired earlier.

* * *

Yuri doesn’t tell him. He puts more blankets on the floor and asks, “my back fucking hurts. Doesn’t yours?”

“A little,” Otabek answers truthfully. They haven’t slept on a bed since they left St. Petersburg. It’s uncomfortable, but tolerable so long as he gets to lie next to Yuri. He never thought he’d admit this, but he very much misses getting kicked in the middle of the night and elbowed in the stomach. He misses Yuri’s unending tossing and turning as they sleep on the cramped full sized bed in the carriage house.

He misses the carriage house. He misses the sound of the window air conditioner that Yuri cranks too high so they can burrow under multiple blankets. He misses Princess laying on his chest. He misses the quiet and the dark of Lilia’s well to do neighborhood.

 There is a couple in the complex that scream at each other every night well past midnight. There is no air conditioning, and so they have to keep the windows open. Blinding light from the flood lights that surround the complex pour in through the window and make everything shine as if it were midday. That bothers him as much as the hardness of the floor.

Right now it’s tolerable. He can see Yuri’s face clearly. Yuri’s expression is smooth and relaxed, as if he’s never had a restless night of sleep in his life. Otabek smooths the hair away from his face. Did the extra blanket really offer that much relief from the hardness of the floor?

It’s strange how Yuri was able to bury his anxieties so quickly and fall asleep so easily despite everything that had happened over the past few days. Perhaps he was simply too exhausted to give it any more thought.

Their evening at the Bolshoi solidified what he already knew. He’s ready to go back home. No, Otabek corrects himself. He’s ready to go back to St. Petersburg. As much as he’s grown to love the sight of Yuri yelling at unattended children, and picking dirt from underneath his fingernails, and setting everything he can get his hands on ablaze, he’s ready to go back to what he’s most comfortable with.

Yuri, who salivates over designer clothes. Yuri, who burns excess energy on the ice and through dance. Yuri, who teases him endlessly. Yuri, who rarely gets that distant and faraway look in his eyes. Yuri, who sucks his cock when they wake up. Yuri, who rides him before bed. Yuri whose problems are much further away.

It’s incredibly selfish.

Otabek gets up slowly, reluctantly, and meanders towards the kitchen. He bought some chamomile tea at the market the other day, and would very much like to see if it works. By some miracle Otabek manages to find a pan, pour the water, and bring it to a low rolling boil with minimal noise. Otabek pours the water into one of the mismatched teacups from the cupboard, and pushes a teabag into it with a spoon. If Yuri were to see him, he’d be teased for pushing the teabag into the water after pouring.

Otabek doesn’t bother with a saucer, only sugar. Then, he pads slowly across the chipped linoleum, through the living room, and out the front door to the concrete patio that serves as a porch.

Otabek smells the fact that he isn’t alone on the porch before he sees. He’ll always be able to place the thick, earthy smell of pipe tobacco. It lives in his memory of his father’s office at the university. It’s always stuck in the hem of Yusef’s clothes even though he has to sit outside and smoke.  He’s often been mystified at the way something can smell so good, and be so awful.

By the time Otabek sees Nikolai, barefoot and in his pajamas on the porch, the screen door has slammed shut behind him, and he can’t gracefully shuffle back inside without acknowledging the other man.

Which is a shame, because he very much wanted to be alone.

“Vices are better at night,” Nikolai motions to the lit pipe in his hand. “When everyone thinks you’re sleeping, right?”

“It’s only tea,” Otabek supplies lamely.

“Anything can be a vice if you use it that way,” Nikolai responds with a half-smile. It is the kind of expression that is tinged with knowing and sadness, the kind that makes Otabek uneasy.  “You haven’t had such good time in Moscow.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“I’m ready to go home,” the words spill out before he can think about their consequence.

“To Almaty?”

He keeps talking without thinking. He says words that are in direct contradiction to what he was considering moments before. “No, St. Petersburg.”

“So, St. Petersburg is home now?”

“Home is-“ Otabek forces himself to stop and at the very least attempt to think about what it is he’s about to say. “Home is where Yuri is happiest.”

Oh.

That wasn’t what he wanted to say _at all_.

“I mean-,” Otabek can feel his heart rattle in his chest. Somehow he’s effectively managed to make an awful situation worse. “Where there’s a big enough bed.”

Magnificent. Worse still.

Nikolai laughs. “I told him you could stay in Inna’s room.”

Otabek grimaces. He’d stolen glances of the room while they were cleaning. The whole house looks as if time has stood still, but even more so there. He understands why Yuri didn’t take his grandfather up on the offer, and why they’ve spent the duration of their visit in a nest of blankets on the floor.

Otabek doesn’t know what to say, so the words just keep spilling out, “I met your son the other day, when we went to the market.” There’s no way that he can make any of this worse, and so he might as well dig his own grave with full honesty and full disclosure.

“Ah,” Nikolai hums. “That explains why Yura was so upset.” Nikolai says this with an accepting tone. One that indicates he understands several things much better now than he did before.

Otabek is slightly envious. He still feels like he’s putting things together largely through all the little bits of information that are left unsaid. 

“You remind me of my son a great deal,” Nikolai says finally, as if Otabek’s spur of the moment disclosure meant that he finally passed some sort of test. “I told Yuri this by mistake. He wasn’t so pleased.”

Now it’s Otabek’s turn to nod, to absorb odd bits of information and apply it to what he already knows, to understand.

“Sasha isn’t a bad person,” Nikolai continues, not knowing the details of what had transpired at the market.  “It’s not meant to be an insult. It’s just better for everyone that he’s kept at a distance.”

Otabek doesn’t understand. The couple in the complex have decided to stop yelling at one another. An eerie quiet is left in their wake. It makes the hair rise on the back of Otabek’s neck. Makes gooseflesh appear on his arms as if he were out on the ice without a jacket.

“But not what you expected when you said you wanted to know more about Yuri?”

 “I wish I knew what to say.” Otabek sips at his tea and leans up against the siding on the house. “Knew how to make it all better.”

“Well, this may not mean much coming from an old man.” Nikolai snubs his finger down into the pipe and relights it. The strike of the match is sharp against the newfound stillness of the night. There isn’t even a breeze, and because of that the stagnant June air is stifling. “But I don’t think there’s so much that can be done for things that are out of your control.”

There’s another test embedded there. Otabek knows this. Feels the barbed edges buried deep within the statement despite the softness of Nikolai’s voice.

“So home is where Yurochka is happiest,” Nikolai laughs again in dry amusement.

* * *

“Grandpa we need to get on the road,” Yuri complains.

Otabek doesn’t say anything in response. He simply makes sure that their knapsacks are properly tied down to the rack on the rear fender of the bike, and checks the shipping app on his phone. Their suitcases are en-route, and should be waiting for them when they arrive in St. Petersburg tomorrow afternoon.

“One more thing Yura. Come on.” Nikolai beckons toward the side yard. There the yard fades into the washed dirt path that leads down to the creek and the towering apartment complex. “Otabek too.”

Nikolai’s movements are slow and unrushed. Otabek and Yuri take awkwardly slow half steps so that they can follow him.

Nikolai leads them to the shed that rests just behind the house. The ramshackle house looks as if it is one strong gust away from falling over. In stark contrast, the shed is quite new. It’s pained bright green, and the metal hinges on the door aren’t rusted over. Nikolai extracts a large key ring from his pocket. Carefully he picks through his car keys, his house keys, and then finally extracts a small silver key.

“We had a few misunderstandings during this visit.” Nikolai comments as he fiddles with the lock and key.

“No shit gramps.”

Yuri’s coarse words make Otabek cringe despite the fact that he’s had several days to get used to Yuri being so casual with his grandfather.

“Well,” Nikolai continues. “It’s not something that we can fix so easily. Maybe slowly, in time.”

“Alright,” Yuri says. His expression shifts. He’s wide eyed, confused, uncomfortable.

Liver spotted hands tug at the lock. They remind Otabek of hazy memories of his own father’s hands. “Well, we need a reason for Otabek to come back to Moscow then.” Nikolai removes the lock and pulls the doors to the shed open and outward. “Since we have not been so welcoming.”

There’s more dust. In Moscow the dust is never ending.

Both Yuri and Otabek crowd close to Nikolai, who stand sock still in the center of the open doors. “So if you bring Otabek back, together you can work on this.”

There are metal pieces strewn everywhere. Some of them are quite rusted, while others are covered in dull gray primer, and others still shine with a bright metallic glow that catches the errant rays of sunlight and hold onto them for fear of not seeing the sun again any time soon.

“What the fu-“

“Is that an Ural?” Otabek interrupts before Yuri can finish his statement. Otabek recognizes a bike in pieces. Scattered about is a gas tank, a rear fender, the clunky and awkward husk of a side car.

“Precisely,” Nikolai responds. “So it doesn’t matter if you make it back before the end of the summer. Or next summer, or the summer after. You’ll come back to Moscow. You’ll come back to Moscow and you’ll fix the bike together.”

Otabek feels compelled to explain himself. He doesn’t _need_ a bribe. He’d endure a thousand more awkward weeks in Moscow for Yuri’s sake.

“Grandpa,” Yuri’s voice starts out soft and curious, but the word ends gruff and demanding. Like he’s trying to hide several emotions that blossomed in his chest in between syllables. 

The rest of their goodbyes are anything but graceful. Yuri nearly knocks Nikolai over by jumping into his arms, and Otabek has to steady them both. Nikolai pulls Otabek into another awkward hug. “I don’t need a bribe Nikolai,” Otabek explains in a hushed whisper.

 “This time wasn’t so good. Let me show you that you’re right.”

Otabek breaks the embrace, and shoots Nikolai a quizzical look.

“That your home is where Yura is happiest. Let me try again someday, to show you that Russia is home.”


	6. Practice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the shit is pacing?

It’s difficult to not compare this summer to last. Otabek won’t let nostalgia cloud his vision completely. He won’t say that waking up to Yuri half naked in the kitchen each morning and being unable to touch him, was better than waking up beside Yuri half naked every morning. However, Otabek can say that he much preferred the repetitive and predictable nature of last summer. It had microscopically small variations on the same theme each day, and each variation inevitably pushed him and Yuri together until they could no longer be disentangled.

This summer seems to be cobbled together from little bits and strands from each of their lives. They were so wholly isolated in Almaty. Each day consisted of just Otabek and Yuri and Yuri and Otabek. Otabek could live in every little slip and every little whisper and each miniscule nuance between their interactions.

This summer speeds past quickly. April is a blurr of painkillers, old first editions, and pink lemonade in Almaty. May is tension, coupled with vulnerability and exposure in Moscow. June and july are new habits, dance, and new resources in St.Petersburg. Of course, when they leave, Yakov barks at them that they’ve travelled too much this summer and they’ll never be ready for their first Grand Prix events in time. Of course this is accompanied by a harsh warning, “Especially Otabek, what with your injury.”

Otabek has heard similar warnings from his own coach back in Almaty. They talk weekly over the phone after Anton has had time to view videos of his routine, and the response is always the same, “You’re still not back to where you were at Worlds last year.” The unsaid part is of course that he only received bronze at Worlds, and that alone was due to some kind of miracle that worked its way into the laces, and into the blades, and up to his knee and shielded him from pain only so for another brief and wonderful moment of standing next to Yuri on the podium.

However, Otabek wouldn’t miss a trip to Japan with Yuri for the world, much like he’d gladly endure another thousand tense visits to Moscow if needed.

That is, if Yuri would sit still. Their connecting flight from Moscow to Seoul is nearly nine hours, and they were stuck in taxi for almost an additional hour due to other planes on the runway. Yuri should be used to this level of international travel by now. Not to mention, the discomforts of international travel should be all but ameliorated by business class seats.

“Yuri please. I wouldn’t mind sleeping before we got to Seoul,” Otabek all but begs. The cabin lights are dimmed low on the plane, and everyone else in business class seems to be resting peacefully. Yuri wriggles and twists in his chair underneath the paper thin airline blankets. He’s requested multiple and stacked some on his lap, and another around his arms, and tries to furtively type on his laptop while pulling the blanket back over his arms. “Put on a sweater,” Otabek begs.

Yuri’s still dressed for a warm day in St. Petersburg. Short sleeves, tight jean shorts.

“Sorry it’s just,” Yuri pokes at his laptop screen, and the cream colored blanket spills over the keys. Yuri distorts the pixels on the screen, and they ripple in blue, gray and pink across the open spreadsheet. “We have a lot to do.”

Otabek leans in closer to really look at the screen. It’s “the list,” they made last year during the impossible waiting period building up to the Grand Prix final. Yuri’s updated it. They’ve done most of the things on the list for St. Petersburg, and about half for Moscow.

“Cause we don’t have to worry about competing.”

“Right,” Otabek’s heart drops in his chest, makes his stomach feel heavy, and his breath short. It’s August. He’s expected to return to Almaty soon, although he’s tried not to think about it much. Just move through his routine, become better, heal faster, and ignore the fact that very soon he’ll be on a flight back home.

Otabek pulls the flimsy little sleep mask that is always included on international flights over his eyes and wedges the travel pillow against Yuri’s arm. It keeps Yuri from fidgeting with the blankets, and the seat, and the tray table, but it doesn’t help him get to sleep. “Hey, we didn’t pay for these seats, so you can lean on me like we’re shoved in economy,” Yuri complains. “You’ll feel better if you lean back.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep,” Otabek confesses. He gets his own computer out from his carry on, and connects to the overpriced in-flight wifi.

“What are you looking at?” Yuri whispers.

Otabek tabs out of the page he’s on too quickly. “I need to find some places to get Farida some souvenirs. There are some things that mother refuses to pay to have imported from online shops.”

“Uh-huh.” Yuri responds coolly. “Souvenirs. Cause you don’t have a list on your phone already that she sent you.”

Yuri continues to lean over his shoulder as Otabek mindlessly clicks through travel blogs and trip advisor pages. “Your screen is always so much more interesting than anything I look at,” Yuri explains.

Thirty minutes later, Yuri’s asleep against his arm. The twisted position that Yuri falls asleep in is a stark contrast to his earlier words. There’s nothing comfortable about the way Yuri’s fallen asleep. There’s nothing about his current position that takes advantage of the larger first class seats. Otabek hears the soft little snoring noise that comes from Yuri whenever he sleeps in a half seated position. Otabek reopens his bookmarks. He pulls up the University of St. Petersburg homepage, and looks at the admission requirements. It’s redundant. He has them all committed to memory.

* * *

 

This is Otabek’s fourth visit to Japan. When he steps off the Shinkansen and exits the station with Yuri and their luggage, it feels like he’s stepped into a dream. Everything that he sets eyes on has a strange lucid but fuzzy filter over top of it. Everything he sees seems to be a strange and mismatched combination of familiar and foreign. He’s seen this place so many times in public Instagram photos with thousands of likes, and private messages shared in text or snapchat for his eyes only. However, this is the first time he’s set foot in Hasetsu.

Moreover, Yuri is well known and well liked here, in ways that he clearly isn’t in Russia. In the market in St. Petersburg there are cries of “Yurachka! Please take a photo.” In the cramped smoke filled bars and restaurants in Moscow, there are older people with gray pocked marked faces and wide kind smiles that say, “You look just like your mother.” In Hasetsu, it’s over excited cries of “Yuri-chan,” followed by more subdued greetings of, “Ohisashiburi.” The exchanges are never more than a few words, and Otabek always has to ask what they mean. The content is similar. “Long time no see,” or “glad you’re back,” or “finally came home.”

He recognizes the clean black serif letters of the sign that reads “Hakata City,” when they transfer to the regular JR train. He’s seen it in blurry too quickly snapped photos that were text to him without context. Stepping off the train, he recognizes the squid statue from instagram posts. These photos were buried too deeply on Yuri’s timeline for him to have “liked” them without rousing suspicion.

On the other side of the squid statue, Victor and Yuuri met them. In Russia, they always look at him and Yuri with what Yuri calls the, “mother hen stare.” Their stares are kind, and heavy and are ready to pick apart their most recent attempts at executing their programs. Where Victor points out what was done incorrectly, Yuuri always follows up with a suggestion for how to approach the problem differently.

Now, their twin smiles are soft and genuine. Otabek feels, as if for the first time, they’re looking at him as an equal. Today he doesn’t stand before them as a project for the dance studio.

He wonders if Yuri ever feels this distinction. Perhaps his relationship to the couple is strong enough and fluid enough to feel consistent and lived in always.

“Yurio, Otabek,” Yuuri calls. “Welcome home.” Yuuri calls in Russian. Then a light red blush dusts across his face. “I mean um, Otabek. Welcome to my home.”

* * *

 

Yuri awkwardly tries to shuffle out of his shoes while he darts forward and over the threshold of Yuutopia. He moves in disjointed little half trip-half steps while he shimmies out of his sneakers. Then, his feet make loud thumping noises against the tightly woven tatami mats. Simultaneously, he scatters his luggage in the entryway, and darts through the public dining area. “Mari!” He doesn’t stop to walk around patrons, or furniture, or even Makkachin. Instead, he sidesteps bewildered passersby, jumps over a low table, and charges into the back room. “Mari you hag. Where the fuck are you?”  
Otabek takes the time to remove his shoes, and put his and Yuri’s out of the way onto the shelf lined with other pairs of shoes. He moves the luggage out from the entry way and slowly follows Yuri inside. “Yurio, don’t make me and Otabek carry all your luggage in,” Victor calls into the dining room. Victor speaks in what Yuri has dubbed the “mother hen,” voice. Much like the mother hen stare, it’s doting, parental, and scrutinous.

It makes Yuri holler, a gruff, “go fuck yourself,” over his shoulder at Victor. Otabek can’t help but think that this was purposefully done in Russian and not in Japanese, as to not disturb the few guests that linger in the lobby.

A navy blue cloth hangs from the top of the door frame, and blocks only the top half. A woman parts the cloth and emerges with an unlit cigarette drooping on the crest of her lower lip. Otabek has seen her on the peripherals of the kiss and cry, and at Worlds. They’ve never been introduced, but he assumes that this is Mari. “I’m going to put you on dishwashing duty tonight.”

“You were gonna do that anyway hag.” Yuri jumps into her arms despite being much taller, and heavier than she. She hefts him a few inches off the ground despite all of this, as if she’s used to the behavior.

“The two of you should do the indoor bath this morning,” Mari says as she helps them take their luggage upstairs and into a guest bedroom. “Before it gets hot in the afternoon. I’ve already got the air conditioner cranked up so it won’t be unbearable.”

“Great,” Yuri beams. “Otabek smells awful from the flight.”

* * *

 

“Did you manage to get to sleep on the plane?”

Otabek can feel the soft pinching sensation at the back of his neck that indicates that Yuri’s eyes are upon him. There is a slight tinge of discomfort and tightness in his own chest. These feelings indicate that Yuri looks at him not with hunger or with desire, but the same kind of soft and benevolent scrutiny that Victor and Yuuri Katsuki look at Yuri. It’s a feeling that he’s grown quite accustomed to after his procedure.

Otabek hopes that he can remedy that soon. He wants nothing more than to replace every single look of cautious evaluation with one of unbridled need. It’s one of the few things that Otabek longs to do while they are in Japan. Hold Yuri. Love Yuri. Give Yuri some kind of reassurance. Although the summer has been difficult, and the season ahead even moreso, Otabek knows what must be done in order to reconcile these issues.

“Not really,” he says as he tugs a towel over his waist.

“After we take a bath,” Yuri steps into his space. There’s the feeling of soft lips against his, and wide splayed hands across his bare chest. “We can eat. Then we can nap.” Yuri leans into kiss him again. There’s more pressure, and the soft lap of his tongue against his mouth. Yuri leads him by the hand not to the tall tub that takes up the main part of the room, but to a smaller area with a row of shower heads hooked to the wall, and low plastic stools on which to sit. “We need to wash off first.”

“Before we bathe?”

“Yeah, that’s how it’s done.”

“Ah,” Otabek responds simply.

“Sit.” Yuri barks in a voice that is gruff, but has no bite. “I’ll wash your hair.”

Yuri’s fingers are long, his nails shoot electric waves of pleasure across his scalp. Otabek has always liked it when Yuri freely gives him attention. “You smell worse than me by the way,” Otabek teases. “You always smell worse than me after a long flight.” Otabek has perfected the art of changing in the bathroom while the flight attendants start pushing out breakfast trays, applying fresh deodorant, and brushing his teeth.

Yuri usually always keeps his sleeping mask pulled down over his eyes, and waits for Otabek to get him a coffee from the flight attendant. Then he nurses the coffee after the fasten seatbelt sign is turned on for the final descent.

They’d gotten through customs and Yuri steered them into a Family Mart still in the airport terminal. He’d then proceeded to cram a particularly fragrant flavor of dried squid into his mouth for breakfast. Although they both needed to brush their teeth and to bathe, Otabek would argue that Yuri needed it more.

Yuri reaches for the shower head, turns the knob, and holds the spray away from Otabek so that he doesn’t get hit with the initial burst of cold water. “Right,” Yuri snorts. “Cause changing and giving yourself a whore bath in a filthy ass airplane toilet is so hygienic.”

When Yuri deems his hair appropriately rinsed, Yuri hands Otabek the detachable shower head. The water is still turned on, and water flows freely against the clean crisp blue tiles of the bath wall. Then, Yuri reaches for soap and a washrag and sits down next to him on an adjacent stool. “Face me,” Yuri instructs.

The terrycloth washcloth feels rough against his skin despite being lathered herb scented soap. Yuri drags the cloth across Otabek’s collarbones, his chest, and down his arms.

“You’re doting on me,” Otabek’s mouth pulls into a smile.

It’s the kind of quiet observation that makes Yuri snort, and respond with. “No shit Altin.” Yuri scoots in closer and leverages his long arms around to wash Otabek’s back.

“What’s the occasion?”

“Dealing with my fucked up family on two continents.” Yuri’s laugh is bitter, but Otabek knows that it’s the kind of nervous sound that he makes when he’s juggling multiple emotions. He doesn’t know which one to feel at that moment. “Sappy shit. Picking me.” Yuri leans back in and washes his stomach, his hips, lower still.

It’s difficult to remember that they’re in a public space, especially when the prickle of scrutiny is gone from Yuri’s eyes. Instead, it’s been replaced by the captivated look of desire that Otabek would chase to the very ends of the earth.

“We can’t fool around right now. But I’m still gonna seduce you nice and sweet. That way you’ll do all sorts of dumb touristy shit with me later.”

Otabek wouldn’t need to be seduced. However, he dare not tell Yuri this. Instead, he raises a single brow in interest. “Alright but,” Otabek takes the soap from Yuri and the wash cloth too. It’s his turn to reciprocate. “I want to do the same for you.” Otabek washes Yuri’s body with an amount of care that is equal to what Yuri gave him. Dutifully he glides the cloth over porcelain skin, between bruised toes, and skin that’s gone red from being under the shower for too long. He washes Yuri’s hair with the same amount of tenderness and care that Yuri lavished on him, although it takes much more energy and effort to not tug too harshly at knots in Yuri’s hair.

Yuri turns off the shower, manipulates his hair onto the top of his head, and pins it into place with a large plastic clip. Then he leads Otabek by the hand back to the bath.

“I didn’t pick you Yuri,” Otabek says as they both brace themselves on the side of the bath and gingerly step into the warm water. It smells of sulfur, and Otabek wonders if it will cling to their skin and to their clothes after they’re finished. He feels as if he can recall the faint mineral odor on Yuri’s clothes in the past. In the present, the scent is pungent, but not repulsive. “You picked me. I couldn’t help myself.”

“Altin, can you fucking stop,” Yuri sinks down into the bath, and splashes him while Otabek moves to sit and get comfortable. “How the fuck am I supposed to seduce you if you’re spewing sappy shit like that?”

“I didn’t mean that I only wanted to wash your hair.” Otabek moves so that their legs are touching slightly. They’ve showered together in the past, but it can’t even compare to this. The bath is vacant except for the two of them, and they can stretch and relax and just be comfortable together. “I want to-”

“What, seduce me?” Yuri leans into the side of the tub and stretches his long arms over the side. Yuri bends backwards so that his knuckles almost touch against the floor tiles. Otabek watches as clear tendrils of water stream from Yuri’s arms over the edge of the tub. Water drips down to the floor as Yuri languidly stretches in slow cat like movements. “Nice and sweet?” That’s not going to work. You can’t do the same thing I’m doing.”

Otabek laces their hands together. “Boring?” It’s no secret that although Otabek taught Yuri how weave in and out of rush hour traffic on the bike, Yuri’s perfected it. Yuri is never boring.

“Nah, I don’t mind the sappy shit now. I just don’t want you to be better at it then me when I’m actually trying.”

Otabek laughs. “Alright.” He stares at the way the light from the high windows at the top of the bathing room stream in and leave big bright patches of glare across the tiles. Otabek can’t help but lean against Yuri, and close his eyes for just a moment.

“Hey,” Yuri tweaks his nipple. It does not feel good, like the soft gentle pinches that shoot straight below the waist. It’s more of a bullied on the playground type of pinch. The sharp pinch indicates that Yuri’s not getting his way, and he finds it upsetting. “Don’t fall asleep on me. We have to eat.”

Otabek laughs. “This is what it’s like to be seduced? Why haven’t you done this earlier Yuri?”

* * *

 

After the bath, they change into the coal black yukata that Mari gave to them. The material smells like fabric softener, and it mutes the mineral scent from the bath. Otabek is grateful for it.

The lunch rush has picked up, and the once empty dining area is now filled with patrons. Otabek notices two things immediately. First, they’re the youngest people in the dining area by several decades. Second, they’re the only ones wearing yukata. Under any other circumstance, Otabek would feel self conscious about the latter bit of information, but Yuri seems so comfortable in his skin here. It seems as if Hasetsu is second only to the ice.

There’s something relieving about allowing Yuri to guide him through these situations. Yuri pushes him to a table in the corner that’s surrounded by thick, well worn cushions made of dark green fabric. Yuri shucks his foam slippers beside the table, and Otabek does the same. Many patrons wear the yellow and white rubber shoes at the table and on the tatami. They slap the base of your heel when you walk, and make a strange little sticky noise with each step. The dining room is filled with such sounds.

On the plane, and on the Shinkansen, and even the local train, everything was so quiet you could hear a pin drop at any given moment. In Almaty people spoke in public freely. In Yuri’s neighborhood in Moscow, yelling was appropriate if needed. In Hasetsu, it seemed that people didn’t speak to one another in public at all. They saved their words for indoors.

And so the bustling dining room is filled with low chatter. Dishes clink against the table. Pots and pans clatter together together in the kitchen followed by the high pitched whine of “Toshi!” Although the noise level pales in comparison to the sounds of a city, it sounds deafening compared to the quiet of the train and the bath.

Mari emerges from behind the navy blue panels of cloth that separate the kitchen from the dining room. “Hey boys.” On one hand she balances a plain white pot of tea, in the other a pair of mismatched cups. One is plain white porcelain. The other has a delicate rose pattern on the inside and out. “Have a good bath?”

“Yes thank you.” Otabek nods.

“I brought you your favorite teacup Yurio. With the flowers.”

“Shut up hag,” Yuri growls, but immediately snatches the cups when she places them on the table. This action ensures that Otabek gets the plain white cup that all patrons are assigned. Yuri gets the special rose accented teacup.

“You wanna menu Otabek?”

Yuri locks eyes with him and stares intently. His lower lip is caught between his teeth like he wants to interject into the exchange between himself and Mari, but has thought better of it. Whether it’s for the sake of seduction, or Yuri’s unbridled passion for a certain dish, Otabek is unsure.

“Yuri can order for me,” Otabek says and gives Yuri a knowing smile.Yuri will repay the smile two fold in the form of soft elbows to the ribs. He’ll give back with other playful actions such as bullying pinches of the nipple, smoldering kisses, and firm touches in all the right places that make him shudder.

“Katsudon for both of us!” Yuri exclaims.

When Mari leaves again, Otabek pours them both tea. “You’ve already made this for me last summer.” Otabek says and pushes the dainty china teacup over to Yuri.

Yuri pounds the thick wooden table with the thick part of his palms. “Not exactly,” he says in a tone that’s dead serious. His voice drops to a hushed whisper. “I’m okay. I can make okay katsudon, but Mari’s is something really special.” Then he adds as an afterthought, as if to explain the outburst followed by the whispering, “Don’t tell Mari.”

Otabek knits his brows together and nods to indicate that he understands the sensitivity of the information he’s just been given. “It’s a secret then.”

Yuri is leaning back against the wall. His yukata is tied loosely, and it fits him awkwardly since he’s so tall and so thin. It covers his legs, but it hangs loosely at the front. The garment bows out so part of his chest is showing. Yuri didn’t put a T-shirt on underneath, and so he constantly stops to stuff the left hem underneath the right hem. The attempts to cover his chest are futile.

Otabek divides his gaze cautiously. He watches a pair of old men playing cards in the center of the dining area, and then he’ll watch Yuri furtively attempt to cover himself with every slight movement.

“Stop staring,” Yuri kicks him gently on the shins. “Just cause yours fits.”

Otabek rises from the low table and steps around it. He sinks down onto the cushion next to Yuri, so that they both sit next to one another and the opposite side of the table is vacant. “I can’t stare so much now,” Otabek smirks.

“You’re still fucking staring, it’s just less obvious,” Yuri barks in response. They sit next to each other now, with legs touching. Otabek wraps his arm around Yuri’s waist. For a moment he questions whether or not extends over the previously agreed upon boundary of letting Yuri take the lead. Yuri doesn’t complain, and so Otabek decides that he hasn’t.

“You should’ve worn a shirt.” Otabek looks down at his own yukata. He has a black shirt and shorts on underneath just in case.

“I don’t care if my chest is showing if it’s just me, and the morons,” Yuri says through clenched teeth as if he doesn’t want to accidentally summon them.

Otabek does find it strange that Yuuri and Victor helped them with their luggage, and then all but disappeared. However, Otabek has an inkling of where they are and what they are doing. He and Yuri have arrived at the studio many a time to find the door locked from the inside. They’ve been invited for tea at Victor and Yuri’s St. Petersburg flat multiple times. On these visits, it is not uncommon to have Victor usher them inside. Moments later, Yuuri will emerge from the bathroom shirtless, covered in love bites, and completely mortified that Victor let in the company without telling him.

“Look Beka,” Yuri rests his head against Otabek’s shoulder and taps his chest. “It’s your favorite.” Yuri gestures to the widescreen television that’s adjacent to the main bar. On screen, an animated cat creature with wide eyes and a childlike voice stretches comically across the entirety of the screen.

Otabek immediately knows that the animated show is Yo-Kai watch. The cat’s name is Jibanyan. Although he cannot understand a single word of the dialogue over the chatter in the restaurant, nor can he understand the closed captioning that scrolls across the screen, he knows the storyline. It involves the introduction of a new character. Farida is obsessed, and of course he’s expected to bring back as many souvenirs as he can fit into his luggage.

He wasn’t just diverting Yuri’s attention on the flight over.

As if on cue Mari strides across the room with a large bowl balanced in either hand. “Alright. Here ya go.” She sets down the plates, and Otabek is greeted with the sight of rice, fried cutlet, eggs, onions and peas in generous portions.

Otabek reaches for the paper wrapped chopsticks that rest next to his bowl. He breaks them apart slowly so that the shallow perforated line separates perfectly between them. There isn’t a hint of asymmetry between the two sticks.

“Mari,” Yuri calls to the woman after she’s began to bus an empty table “Can I have a fork?”

Mari turns on her heel and squints at Yuri. She says something to him in Japanese, and Otabek can only assume that it wasn’t overwhelmingly positive. Yuri fires something back, and there’s a bite in his tone. It’s not the harsh guttural sounds he makes when he feels compelled to prove himself. Instead, it’s a pseudo kind of venom that often dissolves into playfulness or smiles.

This is confirmed when Yuri whispers under his breath to him, “she said to have you feed me.”

“It’s not the worst idea.” Otabek notes.

“So go on,” Yuri continues to use his disinterested tone in an attempt to rebuff his previous comment. Otabek can see through its inherent transparency. He’s only opposed to the idea because Mari suggested it.

“Try it,” Yuri urges.

Otabek carefully manipulates the chopstick so that he gets a piece of meat that is evenly covered in egg, a bit of rice, as well as vegetables too. He raises it to his mouth, and tries not to feel self conscious at the way that Yuri watches him.

The meat is tender, but the breading is crispy. It’s near identical in taste and flavor to what Yuri prepared for them in Almaty, but the texture is more pronounced, and the seasoning is stronger. The food is delicious, and Otabek has to control the urge to eat voraciously.

Mari brings Yuri a fork. “You like it Otabek?”

Otabek rests the chopsticks on the rim of the bowl. “It’s um.” He looks up at the ceiling in concentration trying to recall the basic words that Yuri reviewed with him in the days before the trip. Whenever he’s traveled to Japan in the past, he’s let Yuri do most of the talking. If Yuri wasn’t there, he’d settle for pointing at menus and Google translate in a pinch. “Oshi,” he remembers finally. “Very Oshi.”

“Excellent!” Mari beams at him. In the year or so that Otabek has been with Yuri he feels as if he’s been subjected to many implicit tests of loyalty and affection. This has been the easiest to pass by far. In that moment, Mari’s smile indicates that a barrier between them has been removed.

Otabek watches Yuri chase bits of sticky rice around the bowl and shovel it into his mouth. Yuri eats voraciously and without abandon. Otabek would find it strangely endearing, if several of the onsen patrons hadn’t stopped to gawk at the foreigner who shoveled food into his mouth, talked over the television, and hurled insults at the waitress. “They’re not that difficult to use once you get the hang of it,” Otabek offers. “Farida actually showed me. We go to the Chinese market you took me to a lot now.”

“Show me.”

Otabek knows what it is that Yuri’s really asking. It’s strange, considering that Yuri’s affections in public are fleeting. Yuri will plant lightening fast kisses to his cheek and his temple in crowded locations, but blush deeply when Otabek reaches for his hand. Otabek can only assume that it is because Yuri feels comfortable here.

* * *

 

Yuri’s had everyone try to show him how to hold chopsticks. He’s had Yuuri move his hands so that he’s holding the first stick like a pencil, and the second floats on top of his middle finger. It works for awhile, and then he always goes for a piece of something that’s too large and fucks it up.

He’s tried to go for thick udon noodles in broth, only to give up and try to awkwardly eat them with the broth spoon. This goes on and on until Mari takes pity on him and finds a fork.

He’s had Yuuko bring over bright pink colored training chopsticks that are joined in the middle with a thin strip of plastic. She told him, “The girls liked these. Figured it out in no time.”

Yuuri insisted in soft tones that he could do it if he kept practicing. Mari let him struggle until his broth was almost cold. Yuuko was well intentioned, but he hated being compared to children. All of their attempts made his blood boil hot. It almost made him want to stick to finger foods like onigiri and charred meat on a stick, but the allure of Katsudon, and soba, and gyoza was far too tempting.

If anyone could teach him without pissing him off royally, it would probably be Otabek. If Otabek couldn’t teach him, he could be a sappy fucker. Which, is all Otabek really wants: to drip sap everywhere until Yuri is fucking drowning in it.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t fucking mind.

Otabek takes a bit of meat and egg between his chopsticks and places a hand underneath in order to catch any bits of errant rice. Slowly he moves the morsel of food toward Yuri’s mouth.

Yuri must be losing his goddamn mind. He must be sick from jetlag and onsen fumes or something. Instead of swearing at Otabek, cursing his name to filth, and getting upset that he’s not actually teaching him anything, Yuri opens his mouth and accepts the bite of food instantly.

He chews, and savors the taste. That bite had several pieces of green scallion, which Yuri loves the flavor of. “This looks stupid.” He says as he accepts another bite from Otabek.

“The hostess said it was permissible.” Otabek smiles and takes a bite himself.

He’s such an asshole sometimes. Such a nice, doting asshole. “Hurry up then,” Yuri complains. “I’m starving.”

Otabek chews slowly, swallows, and selects another piece for Yuri. Once more he moves the chopsticks to his mouth, and waits for Yuri to accept the piece.

“Victor don’t say anything.” No sooner than rough wooden edge of Otabek’s chopstick moves away from his lips, Yuri feels the hair stand up on the back of his neck and his face burn hot with embarrassment. Yes, this did in fact look stupider than shoveling food into his mouth. “Just leave them alone.”

“But Yuuri they look so cute, and I have to say something. Yurio always teases us.”  
Yuri feels Otabek unhook his arm from around his waist and move so that their legs and hips are no longer pressed together underneath the table. That alone elevates his rage from pissy, to white hot levels of, "how fucking dare Victor?"

“I can hear you asshole,” Yuri says in Russian.

“So you don't mind if we join you for lunch?” but Victor’s already moving to sit across from Yuri, and Yuuri’s placing two steaming bowls of broth onto the table. Yuuri sits, and pushes one toward Victor.

“Not at all. We were actually having a really nice time, and I was wondering how it could be ruined.”

“You’re never this affectionate with Otabek in Russia.” Victor notes. “Could it be that Japan is truly for lovers?”

Yuri doesn’t miss the way Yuuri pinches his lips together tightly. They quiver awkwardly, as if he fears another outburst.

“Listen to yourself old man,” Yuri gruffs. It’s easier than cursing his name to filth. Yuri shoots a furtive glance to the fork, and then to Otabek, and then back to the fork. He knows that Otabek would gladly feed him the rest of his dinner in this way. It’s obvious in the distant and regret filled way he meets Yuri’s gaze. Otabek knows that Yuri isn’t going to let him continue, and that the moment is gone. He sure as shit isn’t going to let Otabek dote on him in front of their shitty coaches. “Where the fuck were you assholes anyway? We haven’t seen you since we put our stuff upstairs.”

“We haven’t been in Japan since the start of the summer when we unveiled your routines,” Yuuri begins, “so we had to dust our room and-”

“Test out our bed and make sure it was still functional,” and Victor punctuates the sentence with his patented panty melting grin and wink combo. “Yuuri bought a steamy little book the last time when we were in Paris, it’s called “A New Way Every Day,” and we’ve learned so much since the summer began in St. Petersburg.”

It has the opposite effect. Not only are Yuri’s panties firmly unmelted he feels as if he’s about to retch right at the table.

“It’s actually really good. We recommend it,” Yuuri adds sheepishly.

“Oh my god.” Yuri inhales the rest of his dinner. Otabek eats quickly, but doesn’t eat his food at the same rate as Yuri does. He takes his time to talk with Yuuri, who explains to him where they keep the spare key to Ice Castle. Yuuri explains that the soda machine out front doesn’t take five-hundred yen coins, and if they need to take the train Otabek can use is Pasmo card if he’s not using it.

Which is all well and good. Except for this kind of, “here is how you live in Japan beyond NHK” talk meant nothing to Yuri.

Victor took it as a great opportunity to begin dissecting Yuri’s most recent issues with the free skate.

“If you can’t do five quads in the free program, that’s fine. Four will work beautifully, and I’d much rather you execute four perfectly than muddle your presentation score with a botched quad. You’re at the point in your career where missing jumps in competition isn’t an option.”

“As current Worlds champion, wouldn’t that be the opposite of what people expect?” Yuri says through gritted teeth. He tries to hide his grin, simply because Victor is too easy to rile up, and this will get him going in no time. “Won’t it surprise everyone if I fuck up royally?”

“Yurio, I cannot believe that you would ever consider that to be a valid way to surprise the audience. Your theme this year is quite surprising if you’d take it seriously. Yuri Plisetsky, Russian Punk and former skater of Agape will skate a piece based on deep companionate love that-”

Yuri tunes Victor out, his gaze drifts back to Otabek. Otabek looks to him during a lull in the conversation. Their eyes meet for a split second, and in that second it’s like they both know.

Yuri gets up from the table, and extends his arm towards Otabek to help him up from the table. “We’re jet lagged. We’re sleeping.” Yuri explains.

“Yurio,” Yuuri calls out after him. “Do you want us to wake you at a certain time?”

“No hag!” Yuri calls over his shoulder as he walks rapidly to the back stairs.

“Speak with you later.” Otabek says softly. Then, on their way towards the stairs that go up to the living area, Otabek catches Mari by the elbow softly. “Thank you for lunch.”

“Oh,” Mari’s blush is bright, and she makes no attempt to conceal it. “No problem.” What an asshole. Nobody had such a right to be so charming.

Yuri leads him by the hand upstairs.

* * *

 

“So the first time I stayed here,” Yuri slides the door open to the banquet room, but doesn’t step inside right away. The room is littered with medals, and photos of Victor and Yuuri on the podium, some separate and some together. There’s a wedding photograph on the rear wall, a few marble busts that Victor has lugged all across Russia, and most importantly of all is a grayed and sleeping Makkachin resting in the middle of the king sized bed. A cursory glance of the room reveals that the gross couple has not left out anything disgusting or incriminating during their experimentation on today’s chapter of, “A New Way Every Day,” not that Yuri remembers the title. Not that Yuri stealthily added it to his cart on Amazon under the table while Otabek finished eating.

“Well not exactly,” Yuri stomps across the threshold. “Victor stayed here in the big room. I had the storage room.” He walks around the bed and into the storage room that Victor and Yuuri now use as a closet. Yuri throws the sliding door open, and throws on the light.

For a split second he’s afraid of what he may find.

Yuri and Otabek are greeted by parallel rows of clothing that seems to run on a gradient scale. First are finely tailored suits, then casual wear, then old skating costumes down the line. “I stayed in here. Really kind of annoying cause I had to yell at Victor to sleep with clothes on.”

Otabek’s eyes go wide in shock.

“Because he was waiting for Yuuri to change his mind about “having a slumber party.” I’m not making that up Otabek.” Yuri adds quickly.

“I don’t doubt that,” Otabek responds. “Was it strange?” Otabek asks.

“Huh?” Yuri slams the door to his old room turned closet shut, and leads them out of the banquet room.  
“To be caught in the middle of their relationship like that?”

Yuri feels his face turn into a heavy and emotion laden frown. “Yes, and no.” He decides finally. “I left before things got really intense, and things evened out when they got serious.”

Otabek nods as if he understands this explanation. For that, Yuri is grateful. He’s not particularly in the mood to explain himself further. Especially when… “So, this is Yuuri’s old room. The one we’re staying in now.” The bed is only a full size, and Otabek will probably be bitching and moaning by the end of the week that it isn’t big enough.

At this very moment it will do.

Otabek slides the door shut behind him, and moves to step out of his foam slippers. Yuri’s hands are at his waist before he can step out of them properly. He awkwardly steps into Yuri, and their lips meet with a rough touch of the lips and clicking teeth.

Yuri wonders if it’s some kind of shitty metaphor. They’re so out of practice despite spending the whole summer together. They just had sex yesterday, and they should be closer than ever before. Instead, they’re stuck in this weird place between closer and more distant.

Yuri shakes the thought from his mind. He steps out of his own slippers while he properly kisses Otabek. Soft tongue is followed by gentle touches. Otabek touches him like this a lot. He can only assume it’s the way that Otabek wants to be touched.

He’s not giving up his own preferences wholly for Otabek, not by a longshot. Yuri makes quick work of the thin obi tied around Otabek’s waist. Eagerly, he pushes his hands inside of the yukata and works it down over his shoulders. Yuri makes quick work of the t-shirt too by peeling it up over Otabek’s chest and tossing it onto the floor.

“You know I love you right?” Otabek speaks in a hushed voice. He’s already accustomed to accounting for the thin walls, and the proximity of Victor and Yuuri’s room nextdoor. He looks at Yuri with half lidded eyes that make Yuri feel drunk with power. Like he’s actually quite good at things like pampering, and seduction. It makes him feel like he’s good for more than pulling his boyfriend against the wall for a quick, rough fuck.

“Of fucking course.”

“Good,” Otabek gasps. Yuri’s latched on to Otabek’s collar bones and is hell bent on testing just how much he can get away with before he leaves a mark. He can’t leave Otabek covered in possessive little marks that make his chest and his cock swell with pride. Public baths don’t make it practical.

Yuri moves to Otabek’s other collar bone, then he mouths at the juncture of his neck. Finally Yuri’s lips meet Otabek’s once more in a kiss that matches Yuri’s preferred pace and fervor. “You know this isn’t even me seducing you yet?” Yuri rests his forehead to Otabek’s upon breaking the kiss. They’re both damp with sweat. The upstairs portion of the house is humid and unairconditioned.

“Really?”  
  
“Really.” Yuri pushes The yukata the rest of the way down, and Yuri watches it pool at Otabek’s feet.

“I can’t wait to see what else you have in store for me then Yuri.” Now it’s Otabek’s turn to tug at his obi and push the yukata downward. Otabek’s hands tease over his skin, and Yuri has to force himself to stay on task.

Yuri runs his hands from Otabek’s firm pectorals, down the smooth skin of his sides, and rests them on the addictive little “v” where the crest of Otabek’s hips, his skin, and his hair pointed him further downward. Yuri walks them backward slowly. He takes his time to kiss Otabek with sloppy, open-mouthed kisses that allow him to drink his fill. The tips of his fingers dig into Otabek’s toned ass.

Otabek’s knees hit the bed.

“You taste like onsen,” Yuri mumbles into Otabek’s chest. The taste doesn’t deter him at all though. Otabek often smells of sweat just after practice. Or, Yuri will lap at his skin after he’s spent the afternoon working on the bikes out in the hot sun. He will often taste of salt and sweat. He’s used to Otabek smelling and tasting pungent. Yuri is addicted to getting love drunk off of him in the process.

“So I taste ba-” Yuri splays his palm wide across Otabek’s chest and pushes the other man down onto the bed before he can finish the statement.

“That’s not what I said,” Yuri growls into Otabek’s chest. He moves lower, and runs the edge of his teeth along each of Otabek’s nipples. Then, he takes great care to soothe them with his tongue.

“Are you sure?” Otabek gasps in regard to Yuri’s earlier statement. “It feels like I’m being seduced.”

“I’m sure,” Yuri grins against the flat of his stomach, and trails more kisses downward. His fingertips graze over Otabek’s soft body hair, and does Otabek know just how sexy that is? Does Otabek know that he’s sexy, even when he’s simply laying in bed and watching him?

Yuri settles his head between Otabek’s thick and powerful legs. Yuri wonders if he can tease Otabek in such a way that he would wrap them around his head while Yuri licked, and sucked, and teased.

Yuri takes Otabek into his hand, and makes sure to lean in close enough so that he can breathe hot hot little breaths onto Otabek’s cock while he speaks. “You want me to suck your cock Beka?”

“Yuri,” Otabek tosses his head from side to side. His jaw is pulled tight, and his eyes are screwed shut. Whenever Otabek gets really worked up from simple touches, and kissing, and teasing, it’s always so difficult for Yuri to stay on task. Especially now. Yuri wants to simply get some lube and sink onto Otabek’s cock and ride him until he’s spent. “Please.”

Otabek always has such a strong and distinct taste. Yuri does little more than rest his tongue against Otabek’s head and mouth at the slit. He lets drool slide out of his mouth and trickle down Otabek’s cock. It’s messy that way, and a little disgusting. However, he can wrap his hand around Otabek’s base, and concentrate on lapping at the tip of Otabek’s cock. He can tease until Otabek is pushing up into his mouth and begging for more. Yuri makes sure to worship him with lips, and tongue, and little barely there grazes of the teeth that make Otabek growl low and bite his lip.

Otabek looks so fucking good, and so fucking beautiful, it’s criminal. He’s covering his mouth with his hand, as if he hasn’t forgotten for a moment that they are not at home in St. Petersburg. Yuri’s hands slide over the soft and supple skin of Otabek’s balls, he applies just enough pressure to Otabek’s perineum to leave him breathless and boneless on the mattress. He rests the pad of his thumb on Otabek’s hole and applies pressure there too, but he doesn’t push inside. He lacked the foresight to get the lube from his suitcase.

Instead, Yuri lavishes special attention to the ridge on the underside of Otabek’s cock. Touching Otabek there always makes him thrust deeper into Yuri’s mouth. In no time at all Otabek teeters on the precipice of losing every ounce of his well exercised self-control. Now is no exception. Otabek thrusts deeper, until Yuri abandons the thought of trying to jerk Otabek off. Instead, he holds Otabek’s hips to the mattress and takes him in fully.

It isn’t an easy task. Otabek is wonderfully thick in all the right places. His cock is no exception. Yuri has to make sure to relax and keep Otabek firmly grounded.

“Yuri, I’m close.” Yuri can feel Otabek’s hands reach for whatever parts of Yuri’s body he can find in a desperate attempt to pull Yuri closer. Yuri wants to stay where he is on Otabek’s cock. He wants Otabek to know with the way that he puckers his lips and hollows his cheek that he is going to take care of Otabek.

Otabek comes with a moan and a rough jerk of his hips that pushes him deeper into Yuri’s mouth. Yuri doesn’t mind, because he loves the taste of Otabek. He makes sure this fact is known. Yuri milks every last bit of come from Otabek’s cock while Otabek writhes and twists against the sheets.

Otabek hauls Yuri up to lay next to him. Otabek’s grip on his cock is firm, and his skin is soft. Otabek whispers embarassing words of praise into Yuri’s ear, as Otabek wishes to compensate for the simple way that he’s decided to bring Yuri to orgasm.

“You’re gorgeous Yuri.” And, “You look so good in your yukata, Yuri.” And, “Your mouth felt so good Yuri.” It doesn’t take long for Yuri to spill in Otabek’s hand.

“Maybe Victor was right,” Otabek murmurs into Yuri’s chest.

“Huh?” Yuri’s busied himself with scratching lazy little circles onto Otabek’s undercut. It always makes his muscles relax, and his eyes flutter closed.

“Japan is for lovers,” he explains in thick sleep addled syllables.

“Oh my god shut up. Take a fucking nap. You’re delirious.”

* * *

 

Otabek reaches for Yuri. Otabek scoots across the bed searching for him until he reaches the edge. Yuri is nowhere to be found.

Upon this discovery, Otabek’s eyes snap open, and he wakes up completely.

Yuri’s yellow and white foam slippers remain next to his, which further adds to the mystery of Yuri’s location. It seems to be customary to walk about the grounds in the slippers.

Otabek rubs the sleep from his eyes, and then goes about the motions of collecting his yukata, combing his hair, and finding Yuri. It’s grown dark outside, and the clock on his phone reads 8:14 P.M.

Before he slips on his house shoes, he snaps a photo of Yuri’s slippers placed next to his in the door frame of their room.

Otabek walks into the dining room, and finds Victor seated alone at the table they’d all eaten lunch at before. He’s got a plate of gyoza and a bottle of sake before him. He’s taunting Makkachin relentlessly. “I don’t know if you can have one. You know Yuuri doesn’t like it when I feed you from the table. Ah, but you're so cute,” Victor beams at the dog. “Here.” He drops the dumpling from his chopsticks directly into the dog’s mouth.

Otabek tries his hardest to bite back the feeling of disgust that wells up in his stomach.

“Ah, Otabek,” Victor turns to him and smiles. “Your Yuri and my Yuuri went for a skate. I decided to stay behind in case you woke up.”

“Ah,” Otabek nods.

Victor pats a cushion next to him, gesturing for Otabek to sit. Otabek complies.

“Would you like some dumplings?”

“No thank you,” Otabek supplies too quickly.

“Should we get in the bath then?” Otabek wants to explain that they’d taken a bath earlier. He’d like to do more than eat, and bathe, and sleep during his time here, but Victor interrupts him. “Don’t feel bad about being lazy while you’re here. This is probably one of the last chances you’ll get to relax before the season starts.”

* * *

 

Victor has drained the last of their beer, and for that Otabek is grateful. He’s feeling more than a little light headed since Victor cajoled him into having a few beers, and then a few more. He’s not used to drinking so much. He looks up at the sky. The stars look like little electric bulbs against the dark navy black blue of the sky.

The sky is never this clear in Almaty, at least not in the city proper.

“I’m thinking of applying to St. Petersburg University,” the words tumble out in the awkward silence between himself and Victor. Otabek would very much like to believe that it’s due to the mind addling, hallucinogenic properties of sitting in a sweltering hot spring in Kyushu in August. Kyushu is like the surface of the sun during the day, and a sweltering rain forest at night. The fact of the matter is, he’s never said the words out loud before. He’s only typed in the admissions page into his browser, looked into student visas, and made a small list in his favorite notebook. The application deadline is in October. He needs transcripts, letters of recommendation, and a sample essay to apply.

“Really? Wow!” Victor’s hand flutters up to cover his wide open mouth. “Yurio must be thrilled. He’d never admit it of course, but I’m sure that makes him very happy-”

“Ah,” Otabek musters the strength to rock on the balls of his feet while he stands in a daze in the outdoor bath. It takes every bit of energy that he has and more to guide himself through the simple movements.

“Yes? Beka?” He and Victor know each other much better now that the other man choreographed his programs for the season, but the use of the name is still too familiar. However, for the first time among many times that Victor has called him “Beka,” it actually bothers him. Victor seems to genuinely like him as a person, but Victor likes everyone. There’s no need to be familiar just because they are both close to Yuri, or because Victor has choreographed his routine. The only thing that fosters this sense of intimacy and openness between them are several emptied cans of Asahi Super Dry.

“I haven’t-” Otabek stares town at the steaming water. He looks at the distorted vision of his toes in the water, and is acutely aware of the fact that they’re pruney.

Yuri’s always says that Otabek’s stare is intense and unnerving. Otabek has never understood it until now, when he exists under Victor’s scrutiny.

One time, when Otabek was in grade school, his classmate asked him whom he liked. He couldn’t think of anyone, so he chose the girl who sat behind him, Angelesa. And of course the classmate told her immediately, and his face burned hot with shame.

This was different, and yet oh so similar. While his feelings for the classmate were manufactured, they became somewhat real and tangible the moment that his classmate told. When he told Victor his intentions, it seemed as if there were an unspoken obligation now that he had to go through with it.

“Trying them out to see how they sound?” Victor chuckles. Victor reaches up out of the steaming water and into the styrofoam cooler he’d brought outside with them.

Otabek wants to dump the ice water contents onto his skin. It’s so overwhelmingly hot, and yet he cannot bring his body to move at all.

“Have one, but drink it slowly,” Victor thrusts something icy into his hands. Through the steam, and the heat Otabek’s brain finally understands that it’s an iced can of Chu-hi. Peach flavored, which is apparently Victor’s favorite.

The drink is syrupy thick and nothing but sugar. Otabek is already fairly drunk. Yuri will yell at him for sure.

“You know, my Yuuri,” and the way he says it always makes him furrow his brow just a bit. My Yuuri, as if he’d ever get the two confused. Victor will also say, “your Yuri”, but it’s a bit of an oversimplification.

“ He’s finishing his MFA after this year,” Victor says with a beaming grin and a lilt in his voice. “He’s working on his final project. It’s going to be a beautiful show Otabek.”

Otabek tunes Victor out for a moment. His gaze shifts from the clear mineral scented water of the bath to the raccoon dog statue which guards the bath and judges them heavily. The paint on the statue is chipped in several places including the left eye. It looks as if it has a lazy eye that follows him around the bath and judges him relentlessly. The statue judges him for his decision to bathe in the summer, the statue judges him for his decision to drink sugary alcohol, and the statue judges him for still having basic communication issues with Yuri.

Otabek rests the can on the back of his neck. The cold sensation violently pulls him from the heat induced stupor that he’d been floating in for some time now.

“How is this relevant?” It sounds too terse, too direct and too strong given the situation, as if he’s snapped at Victor. “Sorry, I mean-”

Victor waves his hand dismissively. “Yurio tells me you have a hard time using your words. Now that you’ve tried, I’m glad you asked.”

Otabek opens his mouth to speak in protest, but closes it again immediately. There’s nothing that he can say in the situation to make things better. Perhaps it is just best to listen.

“When we married, I told Yuuri we’d have to go back and forth every couple of years.” Victor’s intense, ice and crystal stare, meets his own. VIctor looked at him as if that additional explanation was supposed to be all that he needed. Victor looked at him as if that they were supposed to understand one another on some deeper and more basal level.

Otabek didn’t.

“Well we’ve been here for a few years.” And there’s another look, and blink if you’ll miss it nod of the head. Victor’s smile is soft and genuine. It’s so genuine that Otabek finds it unsettling. It isn’t as if they’re close. Why would someone choose to be so vulnerable?

Victor’s smile feels like walking through cobwebs on a trail. Victor’s smile feels like biting into a too soft spot in a piece of fruit. Victor’s affection is slightly unsettling, but never enough to think about much or get upset about.

“We’re thinking of going back to Russia for a bit too.” Victor plucks the can from his hand and takes Otabek’s hands in his own. His fingers are long, but not bony in the same way that Yuri’s are. VIctor’s eyes glimmer with excitement, and uncertainty, and mischief. The expression is overwhelming. His descent into pure and unadulterated emotionality was something that would wake him up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat if he wasn’t careful.

Their hands are linked, but luckily there’s an appropriate distance between their bodies. Yuri had warned him that Victor’s concept of personal space was obliterated after a few drinks and a bath.

Otabek very much wished that his feet did not feel as if they were laden with lead right now. He’d very much like to get out of the bath and never speak of this moment again.

“So I’m just going to try some words out, to see how they sound.” Victor squeezes Otabek’s hands firmly. “If you went, and we went, you wouldn’t have to worry much about finding a coach would you?” Victor winks at him.

Otabek does nothing but blink back in response. The stifling summer air and the chirp of cicadas is the only sound between the two of them. The pressure stretches the silence outward, and of course it’s all very much amplified by the heat, and the liquor.

“Because I’d coach you. Because I like you.” Victor forces a larger smile. Victor looks cartoonish as he does it. His eyes are squished up into his forehead, and his nose is pulled tight, as if his grin is hell bent on conquering every inch of his face.

In the distance Otabek can hear the sound of the side gate being unlocked. Otabek quickly disentangles their hands.

The gruff voice of an angel calls into the bath, “Hey, Otabek, Fuckface. Get out of there before you boil your fucking brains.”

Although he hasn’t done anything wrong he very much feels as if he has. Yuri’s gaze is unrelenting. He was drunk and naive enough to believe that the raccoon dog was judging him earlier. The statue’s cross eyed, chipped paint, glare was nothing in comparison to Yuri’s. Yuri’s expression seems to silently scream, “you’re drunk, fucker,” with each passing moment.

“Ah,” Victor’s hand reaches up out of the water once more. Otabek flinches in fear of being grabbed and pulled close once more. “We wouldn’t want that would we Beka.” Victor pats the top of his head. “Those brains are very important.”

“Stop touching him asshole,” Yuri grits through clenched teeth. “And don’t call him Beka.”

“Victor,” Yuuri’s voice is accompanied by the sound of the door to the indoor bath being slammed shut behind him. “It’s time to get out.” He stands at Yuri’s side, and the two of them share a split second knowing glance with one another that Yuri would deny in a heartbeat if he were accused of it. “I brought you your robe.”

“Ah Yuuri.” Victor leaps up and out of the water with more skill and dexterity than anyone who downed that much alcohol should possess.

“Fucking gross,” Yuri says. Otabek simply averts his eyes until Yuuri says, “He’s covered. Good night Yurio. Good night Otabek.

Together, Otabek and Yuri shuffle inside.

 


	7. Made For Each Other

“That quad was awful.” Yuri lets his mouth wrap around the nozzle of the water bottle and he pulls at it lightly. How the fuck was he supposed to learn anything if is choreographer couldn’t even land the jumps he planned.Never mind the fact that as Yuri hurled insults his mind simultaneously made up excuses for reasons as to why Yuuri might not have landed the quad. At night, even with all of the lights thrown on Ice Castle was impossibly dark. Now that he’s retired, god only knows the last time Yuuri did a quad. Maybe it was the last time they were together on the podium?

“The Sal? Oh, well,” Yuuri joins Yuri at the rail and reaches for his own drink. “The person who taught me the Sal was very-”

Yuri was technically the one who taught Yuuri the Sal. In those scant weeks before Onen on Ice, he couldn’t tell if he hated Victor and Yuri, or if he wanted to stay in Hasetsu for the rest of the summer, regardless of the Onsen on Ice outcome. “Why don’t you take that shitty sal of yours and shove it up your-,” Yuri cuts himself off.The current line of insults is far too simplistic. He’d love to go on a mini-tirade for old times sake. Instead he settles for a barbed, but subdued, “if you had a coach worth a damn he would’ve taught you the Sal himself.”

“Teaching is the best way to solidify learning,” Yuuri supplies. “Your Sals were perfect that season.”

“Stop being a sappy old man. It’s making me sick.” Yuri drifts back out toward the middle of the rink.

“You’re worried about Otabek and Victor being alone?” Otabek was still sound asleep when they left with their gear towards Ice Castle.

“No!” Yuri fires back too quickly. As soon as he closes his mouth he can feel his cheeks begin to burn red. Which was fucking stupid because there was nothing to be embarrassed of. Victor and Otabek have been training together all summer. However, Victor had been sipping gingerly at bottles of sake since dinner. If Otabek wakes before they return, it’s only a matter of what stupid thing Victor will convince him to do. “Anyway he might just sleep through the night anyway.” Yuri aggressively skates to the end of the rink into a wide choctaw. “I’ll show you a quad sal.” He adds a superfluous, “asshole” onto the end of his statement for good measure. Yuri winds his leg around, launches into the air, and lands the jump perfectly. If only this were a competition.

When Yuri lands, he finds Yuuri going through a step sequence, it’s neither his nor Otabek’s. Yuri has to wonder if it’s something that Yuuri is working on for himself, or something that he’s doing or that asshole Minami.

“He’s not allowed to give any kinds of,” Yuuri goes into an elegant spin and faces Yuri. Yuuri looks downward and refuses to meet his gaze despite purposefully facing him. There’s the hint of a blush scattered across his cheekbones, which Yuri thinks is fucking stupid. He’s too old for shit like that, just be direct. “If you hurt him, I’ll kill you,’ kinds of speeches. I made him promise.”

Yuri snorts and brushes off the other man’s comment. “Yeah well he’d better fucking not.” Because the only old man who’d have any kind of right to do that is grandpa, and grandpa didn’t when they were in Moscow. “That would be really fucking dumb anyway,” Yuri decides finally. “After Victor’s choreographed his program and they’ve worked together.”

“Right,” Yuuri agrees.

Yuri lets that particular line of conversation die. There’s nothing particularly useful about letting it continue. Automatically Yuri goes into the introductory step sequence of his short program. Layback Ina Bauer, wide bracket turns into a combination spin. The axel goes first so he can maximize technical points later on. Quad, then combination. Followed by a brief closing step sequence. The bielman, and a simple camel spin. Yuri doesn’t even feel winded. Sometimes Yakov will have him launch automatically into his free skate coming off of the short program to help him build endurance. Yuri does this now.  
  
He gets half the way through before he breaks form and fucks up the combination jump. He pops the triple and it turns into a double.

“Wow, you’re really upset.” Yuuri notes when Yuri all but collapses into the middle of the rink, half in exhaustion and half in frustration.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Yuuri drifts out to the middle of the rink and extends his hand toward Yuri. “You always do really well when you’re upset. The short program was almost perfect. The free you probably could’ve kept going on. Your body would’ve let you. You decided to stop because the jump upset you even moreso.”

Yuri accepts Katsudon’s hand and gnashes his teeth. He hates being read this way. What gave Katsudon the right? The worst part is that as much as he would like to deny it, Yuuri is not wrong. “It’s not about fuckface and Otabek though,” he supplies for lack of anything better to say.

This summer has gone much faster than the last. Yuri knows that all signs point to this being his best season yet. His progress is above and beyond where he’s been in past summers. He’s successfully able to do a quad flip, so he has a last minute trump card for the mid season. He can’t wait to snatch more titles away from more experienced skaters. He can’t wait to stand next to Otabek on the podium.

The undeniable fact remains, Otabek will go back to Almaty soon. He’ll stay in St. Petersburg. It’s no secret that the division of two things that Yuri loves the most is grueling. Yuri’s ready to feel like a whole person year round, not tugged in opposing directions. He hates feeling so powerless. Otabek loves Almaty. Buried within his love for Almaty is Otabek’s love for his family, his people, and a slow meaningful appreciation for all the years of hard work that he put in when he was abroad. Yuri isn’t stupid. In fact, he’s probably one of the few people in the world that understands Otabek’s desire to stay. He certainly would never give up the best coach and the best rink arguably in the world for something like love.

How do you even begin that conversation? “I love you. My chest fucking aches at the thought of you leaving, but I know that there’s nothing that we can do.” Yuri feels like they have it every time they have sex, or every time they kiss. Every time they look at each other with expressions that are mutually laden with want and apprehension it’s silently spoken between them.

It’s nothing that Yuuri would know anything about. He and Victor have never had to deal with anything like that before. He can only assume that if they did, they’d handle it poorly.

“You know I was always worried about taking Victor from skating, but-” Yuuri’s voice trails off slightly. “It was something that he decided on his own. Something that was directly related to me, but I really had no control over.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about Piggy.” Yuri knows exactly what the fuck he’s talking about. He’s sick of being read. “Look, I’m going to go through my free skate. You’re going to be super fucking impressed.”

Yuuri is impressed with the free skate. Yuuri always likes to end practice on a positive note, so he insists that they end there and walk back to Yuu-topia.

* * *

 

Yuri has seen Otabek drunk before. He’s had wine with dinner and asked Yuri to drive. He drank most of a bottle of mulled wine when they were at his aunt’s house on the way to Moscow. Yuri usually enjoys the slight flush that rises to Otabek’s cheeks, and the way his inhibitions are slightly lowered. He’ll ask direct questions, he’ll join in in singing the occasional folk song, he’ll ask Yuri to dance at a skating gala without second thought. The lowered inhibitions are contagious, and it makes it easy for Yuri to say yes, without having to imbibe himself.

It’s safe to say that at this moment, Otabek is shitfaced.

“Yura,” Otabek leans into him while they’re still on the stairs. His kisses are sloppy and open mouthed and he tastes like sugary alcohol. No surprises there given Otabek’s sweet tooth. His robe has fallen open, and his chest is exposed. “Can I make love to you?”

“Can you even keep it up whiskey dick?”

“Probably,” The lilt is gone from Otabek’s voice, and is replaced by his usual serious tone. “Yuri, I have something to tell you,” somehow Yuri manages to drag Otabek the rest of the way up the stairs. Otabek goes boneless as the approach the bed and drags Yuri down with him.

Yuri lets out an undignified, “Oof,” noise as he hits the mattress and Otabek’s chest. Given the fact that his boyfriend is jelly and alcohol on the sheets, Yuri very much doubts that Otabek has the energy to back up his claim.

“We had beer Yuri.” He says in the deadpan tone that he always uses to explain himself.

“Oh yeah right cause that totally makes a difference.” Yuri snorts into Otabek’s chest.

“I am serious.” Otabek extends his hand, as if he’s trying to dismiss Yuri. He looks at his extended hand as if he’s questioning the movement itself. “I have something I want to tell you.”

“Okay but,” Yuri is interrupted by another drunk kiss. Otabek ruts up against him, and at least one question is answered. It’s still functional, even after drinking copious amounts of alcohol. “I wanna brush my teeth, and get you a glass of water. You’re going to need it.”

“Yura,” Otabek whines when Yuri disentangles himself from limbs that cling with the ferocity that only a drunk person can muster.

“I’ll be right back.” The fact of the matter is, Otabek is attractive 99.98 percent of the time. It’s not so much that he’s unattractive now, nor does he believe that Otabek doesn’t want sex. It’s just difficult to see anything about having sex with him at this moment going right. Hopefully he can get him to drink some water and go to bed.

When Yuri returns to the bedroom, Otabek is starfished across the bed. He’s got one arm shielding his eyes from the light that streams in from the hallway. He’s snoring softly. Yuri is torn between waking him up to drink water and letting him rest.

Yuri pokes him a few times only to find that Otabek is dead to the world. Yuri decides to let him sleep. 

* * *

 

Instead of being cranky, dehydrated, and deep black under eye bags, Otabek is nothing but a fresh face and smiles the next morning. It’s fucking irritating.

“How the fuck can you be okay? I’ve never seen you drink so much.” Yuri says in a gruff tone that he uses to try to hide the fact that he’s very, very impressed. Yuri himself can manage no more than a few drinks at a time.

“I think it’s the tea,” Otabek gestures to the black cup in his hand. It’s true that he’s downed his second cup of matcha, and Toshi is still in the kitchen fussing with breakfast.

“Miso will make you feel better too,” Yuri supplies. Victor swears by it as the ultimate hangover cure.

“What kind of, “touristy shit,” Otabek’s mouth twists into a smirk. “Did you want to do?”

“I wanna go up the mountain to the shrine with you,” Yuri says.

“Tousan,” They’re interrupted by Victor, who’s crawled downstairs and into the dining area in little more than a pair of tight black underwear. “Miso please.” Victor’s voice is shaky, and his accent is thick. He sounds still drunk. He switches to Japanese fully, “Tousan, please, I’m dying.” The words are choppy, and suddenly, Yuri’s lost his appetite.

“Alright,” Otabek agrees automatically.

“Right, but I want it to be like, special.” They’ve gone to plenty of shrine at this point. Yuri’s got one particularly cheesy over the top thing that he’s wanted to do since the first time he saw cutesy couples in Hasetsu visiting shrines in the summer.

That morning they do an off ice session in the park, and then they head to Ice castle for an on-ice session. Victor attends neither of these, and Yuuri handles the coaching duties alone. 

* * *

 

Waiting for Yuri to get ready to go out is always an ordeal. Yuri will slink out of the shower with a towel draped over his damp hair and scroll through Instagram and twitter until his hair is almost dry. Only when he tires of social media will he move onto laying out an outfit, and begin the arduous process of finding just the right pair of shoes to go with it.

Despite the fact that Yuri has hundreds of pairs of shoes, it usually is narrowed down to either his purple leopard print sneakers, or his glittery Gucci slide ons.

This afternoon is no exception. After their on ice training ends, Yuuri gives the the afternoon to go to the shrine as Yuri had planned. Yuri stomps up and down the hallway. He goes into Victor and Yuuri’s room. Then he tromps downstairs yelling for Hiroko. After a short while, Yuri stomps back up the stairs and slams the bathroom door shut once more.

Otabek simply lays on the bed and allows Yuri the time that he needs. He’s busied himself making a list of all the anime and hobby shops that he’ll need to go to in order to complete Farida’s list. Some of the locations they’ll have to take the train back to Fukuoka for. That’s fine. Yuri wanted to go shopping in Canal City anyway.

Yuri storms back into the bedroom.

“Ready to-” Otabek looks away from his screen, and at Yuri. Yuri is shutting the door behind him, and his face is flushed red. Yuri is wearing a royal blue yukata. It’s different from the ones that Mari gives them before they bathe. This one has an intricate triangle pattern all over it. A layered white garment is poking out underneath the top of the yukata, and a forest green obi is wrapped around Yuri’s waist. Otabek can only assume is knotted in the back. The garment was made for someone who wasn’t quite as lanky as Yuri. His forearms poke out from long sleeves that are supposed to reach his wrists.

“Don’t fucking stare. I told you I wanted to do touristy shit.” Yuri explains. “Yuuri has more yukata. Victor has some too, although they’d probably be way too big for you.” Yuri’s voice stutters in embarrassment. “I mean if you want. You don’t have to dress up.”

Otabek gets up from the bed and moves over to Yuri. He catches the soft fabric in between his fingers. It’s silky and made of much better quality material than what they’ve been wearing around the baths as well.

“Is that Katsuki’s?” Otabek pulls Yuri forward by the collar of the yukata and into a bruising kiss. He already knows the answer. The patterned fabric is far too subdued for anything that Yuri would chose for himself.

Otabek kisses Yuri like they’re meeting at the airport after a long absence. Otabek kisses Yuri like he’s sneaking into Yuri’s room the night before a competition. Otabek kisses Yuri the way that he knows Yuri likes to be kissed: hard and demanding until he’s breathless.

“Yes,” Yuri says with a shaky voice. A thin stripe of saliva connects his mouth to Yuri’s as he shakily utters the response.

“Is there a place that sells these in town? A boutique or something?” However, Otabek’s grip on Yuri’s collar is firm. His knee is jammed between Yuri’s thighs, and he can feel Yuri’s growing erection against his leg.

Otabek tugs at the collar and exposes more of Yuri’s soft skin. His mouth seeks out the best places: the juncture of his neck, his collarbone, just above the ear.

“Oh,” Yuri mewls into his ear. “I forgot about how jealous you get when I wear someone else’s clothes.” 

* * *

 

The fact of the matter is, Yuri didn’t forget a goddamn thing. At this point, the mint green sweater that he’d pilfered from Victor’s things has been shredded, and resulted in the best sex of his life. Before it’s ultimate demise, Yuri had not only used the sweater to get under Otabek’s skin on his visit to Vancouver, but subsequent times in St. Petersburg when the air was crisp.

Otabek loves it when Yuri wears Otabek’s Kazakhstan team attire. He loves it when he puts on the leather jacket. But, there’s something about putting on a piece of clothing that is neither his own nor Otabek’s that makes Otabek touch him as if he were starved. There is something about it that makes Otabek feel as if he needs to fuck every ounce of insecurity that he possesses out.

“No, I don’t like that,” Otabek breathes hotly into his ear. “When you wear other men’s clothes.” Otabek mouths at the lobe of his ear and applies pressure with his teeth. That kind of thing makes Yuri’s knees weak. Almost instantly, he’s leaning into Otabek, and depending on Otabek to keep him held up despite their obvious size difference. With each movement of Otabek’s mouth up his the shell of his ear, Yuri finds it harder and harder to stifle his moans into the royal blue silk sleeve of his yukata. The sensation of Otabek’s mouth shoots down his neck, and spine and pulls on his cock. Makes him rut into Otabek’s rough denim jeans. He might have “forgot” to put on the long under wear slacks before he revealed himself to Otabek. “I’ll buy you your own.”

But there’s the promise of something rougher and darker in his voice. One that says that Yuri is going to have to work for it.

He intends to.

“Beka,” Yuri scratches his nails lightly against Otabek’s undercut. Otabek’s hands leave Yuri’s sides. He toys with either end of the obi that he’d had Ms. Katsuki meticulously tie around his waist in just the right way. What did it matter, if Otabek undid it? Especially if Otabek wouldn’t let him leave the grounds with it on?

Otabek kisses him again, and Yuri knows this tactic well. He kisses, nice and slow and rough in an attempt to get Yuri to slow down. It’s is own silent way of wrestling control away from him, and taking charge of any given sexual situation. It’s unneeded. Yuri’s been completely at Otabek’s mercy since he walked into the room and Otabek kissed him.

Yuri breaks the kiss to nip at Otabek’s neck, and his ears, and pull up his shirt in a litany of rushed need-want-lust movements.

“Yuri, stop fidgeting.” Otabek’s voice rumbles low like the engine of the bike. It’s dark like the imported coffee that he buys from Columbia.

“It’s not fidgeting asshole,” Yuri jams his hands up underneath Otabek’s shirt. For the first time he’s upset that they’re not wearing the onsen robes that part so easily down the front and give them easy access to one another’s bodies.

“Isn’t this what you wanted though Yuri?” Otabek has undone the knot, and the blue silk yukata spills outward like opened floodgates.

With free access to his body, Otabek pushes him into the sliding door, and directs his attention to other parts of his body.

Otabek sucks a big deliberate mark onto his collarbone.

“What the fuck Beka,” Yuri can’t even force anger into his voice. It feels too good.

“I want them to know.” Otabek responds dryly. “You might wear their clothes, but you’re mine.”

“Oh my god.” Otabek moves back up to the juncture of his neck. He makes an obscene wet popping noise with his mouth as he mauls Yuri. As vulgar as it sounds, that is exactly what Otabek is doing. Otabek’s left his fair share of marks on Yuri’s body before. Yuri loves it. But beforehand the sting and the ache didn’t show up until the morning after. Yuri’s skin burns because of Otabek now.

“Beka, please,” Yuri ruts against him again. At this rate he’s going to work a wet spot into Otabek’s jeans and ruin them.

“I asked you to stop fidgeting Yuri.” Otabek hooks one hand between the yukata and Yuri’s shoulders and pulls it the rest of the way down. The undershirt, which ties in the front much like the yukata is pulled away too. Otabek takes a few cautious steps backwards from Yuri.

Yuri stands there for a moment, dumbfounded and in withdrawals at the sudden absence of pressure between his legs. He blinks widely at Otabek because what the fuck. Otabek is a confirmed tease, but he doesn’t just pull away like that.

“Make sure to hang up Katsuuki’s yukata.” Otabek explains simply.

Oh fucking kay. They’re doing it like that. Not that Otabek is wrong. The yukata although understated in appearance probably cost a small fortune. He bends carefully at the waist, and picks up the undershirt, the yukata, and the green obi.

“Not that.” Otabek gestures to the green strip of fabric. “I want that.”

Yuri hands Otabek the obi. Then he swallows the lump in his throat. Whenever Otabek knows exactly what it is that he wants, and verbalizes it so freely, Yuri has reason to believe he’s in for a quality dicking. Yuri pulls a hanger out of the closet. It’s one of the velvet colored kinds that Otabek likes to use for nice clothes. He puts the undershirt on one hangar, and the Yukata on another.

During these scant moments of hanging the garments, Yuri is reminded that he’s stark naked. Otabek has the window air conditioner on, and has had it on since they got back from practice a while ago. The room is quite cool, and the temperature affects his body. He’s acutely aware of goose flesh all over his body. The cool air pulls his nipples taught, and his balls do the same. Pull close to his body and make him feel even more exposed.

Otabek pulls the desk chair away from the desk, deposits the obi onto the dark wood, and stands near it. Yuri meets him at the desk.

Yuri isn’t sure what to do next. At the lack of further instruction, Yuri opts to kiss Otabek. He can’t go wrong there. Yuri kisses Otabek in a way that’s soft. He’s slow to add tongue. He breathes against Otabek. He’s not the only one that can play with the other’s desire.

“You can undress me.” Just like that Otabek’s voice is soft, as if he’s questioning everything. Yuri knows what to do. With deft hands, he moves for Otabek’s shirt and pulls it gently over his head. Then he unbuttons the jeans. He pulls them down, and sinks down lower, and lower and lower with them until his knees hit the floor and Otabek’s pants are pooled around his waist. Otabek steps out of them and quickly pulls off his socks. “Suck my cock.”

Yuri can’t discern if it’s an order or if it’s a question. It doesn’t matter. This is what they excel at. They push each other. They fill in the gaps in one another’s confidence. They make their combined efforts better than anything they can do alone. “What did you want with the obi?”

Otabek’s eyes narrow in shock. “Right.” he toys with the fabric in his hand. “Clasp your hands together.”

“Like this?” Yuri laces his fingers together. He has a general idea of where this is going.

“Yeah,” Otabek responds. His tongue darts out and touches his lower lip briefly. “Put your wrists a little closer together.”

Yuri complies.

“Good.” Otabek takes the obi by either end, and loops it several times around his wrists. He ties it with a perfect little bow. Of. Fucking. Course. “Not too tight?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Okay,” Otabek shoots a look at his cock, and then to Yuri, and then to his cock again. Otabek takes himself by the base and pushes his cock closer to Yuri.

Yuri accepts right away. He spoils Otabek. He just got a blow job yesterday. More often than not, Yuri wakes Otabek up with his mouth on Otabek’s cock. Otabek is always sure to repay him in kind. He’ll lap at the tip and trace that one blue green vein in his cock that Yuri finds ugly and Otabek finds delightful. He’ll eat Yuri out until he’s practically crying for cock. But the fact of the matter is, the moment that Otabek’s cock hits Yuri’s mouth, he’s spoiled.

Yesterday, the goal was to make Otabek come, fast and hard. This afternoon, the goal is to put on a show. Yuri makes sure to place his bound wrists where Otabek can see. Yuri makes sure to mouth at just the tip of his cock with half lidded eyes. Yuri makes sure to hollow his cheeks and release otabek with a harsh popping noise before sucking him back in. In no time Yuri has taken control of the encounter once more, and Otabek is openly moaning, “Yuri. Yuri. Yuri,” as if it’s the only word he knows in any language.

Otabek loops a finger underneath the taut fabric of the obi and slowly pulls Yuri off of his cock. “Wanna do you.” Otabek says it in a voice that sounds half drunk. Like it’s last night all over again and Yuri’s pulled him out of the onsen.

“Need something,” But Otabek’s already pushing him forward against the desk and kneeling. Yuri has to fight the urge to ask if that’s okay. If his body will allow it. Otabek’s back to doing all kinds of on ice training now. Kneeling down just to eat his ass is probably the least strenuous thing Otabek’s done since they left for training that morning.

“I know,” Otabek responds simply. Otabek gives him two quick kisses. One at the base of the spine, the other at the base of his tailbone. Somehow this sweet and oddly intimate action makes Yuri flush bright red. Somehow this is more embarrassing than what he knows comes next.

Otabek makes a sharp and undignified spitting nose onto Yuri’s hole, and traces his rim. Otabek repeats the obscene gesture, and hooks a finger inside.

‘Oh my fucking god.” Yuri tries to move his hands on the smooth surface of the desk in order to brace himself. Although the knot otabek tied wasn’t tight, it made his movements awkward. He felt unable to fully secure himself. Every movement of Otabek’s fingers pushed him forward on the tips of his toes and made him feel as if he were dangerously close to falling forward.

Otabek removes his finger, and parts Yuri’s ass. He laps at Yuri’s hole with long strokes, from his perineum to his tailbone. Each action makes Yuri clench his eyes closed so tight that he sees bright white bursts of light against the back of his eyelids. “Otabek.” Yuri stutters. “Stop fucking around.” Although Yuri doesn’t feel ready yet, desire overrides the signals he gets from his body.

Luckily Otabek knows him and his body well. Otabek responds in kind by tonguing him deeper. He presses against his hole and works him open. As Otabek moves within him, against him, Yuri can feel his body become more pliant. With each touch Otabek peels something back, and Yuri submits. With each movement he becomes wetter, sloppier, looser, readier.

Then, as soon as he becomes accustomed to Otabek’s onslaught, he removes himself. He rises against Yuri’s body and turns him around. “Hands around my neck,” the confidence has returned to Otabek’s voice.

Yuri complies. They stand chest to chest, cocks touching. Otabek makes it hard to see the end goal here. Makes him want to beg and whine and plead for Otabek to just take both of them in his hand and jerk the off until they’re both spilling all over one another.

“Raise your leg. I want your foot on my shoulder.”

Yuri raises an eyebrow at him. They utilize Yuri’s flexibility often. This position is a favorite that is best practiced against kitchen counters, and bay windows, and bedroom walls. Yuri wonders if Otabek will be able to hold them both steady if his hands are bound.

“Trust me Yuri.” Otabek says firmly. His statement is reinforced by firm hand on Yuri’s cock. A single pump designed to keep him begging for more.

Otabek moves his hand to Yuri’s hip to steady him. Yuri raises his opposite leg high, and hen he rests his ankle on Otabek’s shoulder. Otabek works a hand between their tight bodies, and guides his cock to Yuri.

“Ready for me?”

Yuri presses his damp forehead to Otabek’s and pants against him, “So ready.”

Otabek slides in slowly, and for this Yuri is grateful. His body can handle it, but it always feels so much better when Otabek goes slow.

“Yura,” Otabek touches his neck softly, and Yuri leans into the touch. “You feel so good.” Otabek rocks on his feet gently. What is usually a nonverbal signal of Otabek’s discomfort in day to day interactions translates so nicely into the way that Otabek tends to his body. At times like these, Yuri feels as if he’s been infected by Otabek’s perchance for sappiness and over the top romanticism. It makes him feel as if he and Otabek were made for each other.

“I know,” Otabek responds, and oh fuck, did he say that out loud? “We were made for each other Yuri.” Oh fuck, he did say that out loud.

As if to reify his point, Otabek wraps his hands around Yuri’s waist, and grabs his ass. Otabek’s squeezing and kneading prevents Yuri’s ass from digging into the sharp edge of the desk. The position allows Yuri to balance his weight between the desk and Otabek.

Otabek continues to give him slow shallow thrusts. The drag is slow the pressure is immense, and Yuri wonders…

Otabek wonders too, “Can you come just from this Yuri? Just from my cock?”

“God I fucking hope so.” Yuri stammers out.

Otabek moves Yuri’s hips in time with his own uneven and shallow thrusts. Then he pushes Yuri back onto the desk so that he’s seated, with his ass resting on the edge. In the new position Otabek is able to thrust deeper, go harder, and hit that spot just right.

“Otabek please, I need.”

“No you don’t,” Otabek responds without so much a hitch on his breath. With their foreheads pressed together, all Yuri can see are Otabek’s eyes. A tempestuous combination of raw emotion: lust, and love, and a thousand little implicit things between them. “You have all you need.”

“Beka,” Yuri whines, but he knows the other man is right. It might take a little longer. Otabek might have to work his cock inside of him for a little longer, but he has all that he needs. “Kiss me.” Now it is Yuri that’s giving the orders. It’s all he can do when his hands are bound and Otabek refuses to touch his cock.

Otabek is more than happy to oblige this particular request. Yuri melts into the kiss. He feels so boneless and so helpless and so at the mercy of the tight painful heat that pools just above his dick. He’d do anything to hold onto it forever. He’d do anything to come.

Otabek pushes him further up onto the desk,and Yuri wraps his other leg around Otabek’s waist. Otabek’s thrusts are brutal, relentless, and in no time at all he’s coming onto his stomach. Instantly the feeling of warm come covering his skin is accompanied by the feeling of Otabek twitching deep within.

Otabek stays inside Yuri until his cock is completely soft and slips out on its own. The entire time he cups Yuri’s neck and says all kinds of things to him in Russian. They’re the kinds of things that Otabek only says in Kazhak. “I love you. I want to be with you forever. You give me meaning.’

When Otabek pulls out completely and unties the obi from around his wrists, Yuri doesn’t hide the few soft tears that have built up in the corners of his eyes and threaten to spill out. He lets Otabek kiss them away without feeling shame, or embarrassment, or the nagging feeling of forced vulnerability that often threatens to drive him crazy.

Instead, he only feels love. 

 


	8. Fit & Refit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, I employ the super complex literary device known as foreshadowing, and I'll give you one guess as to what comes next .

When Dumbass and Lardass were planning their wedding they went back and forth on what to wear. Yuuri wanted nice tailored suits. Victor lovingly insisted, “Yuuri, I don’t know if I can trust you to choose a suit.” Which meant that Yuri had to go along to suit fittings, as well as kimono fittings before the grooms finally agreed that Armani is really hard to fuck up.

If Yuri remembers anything from the suit versus kimono debate was the way that Yuuri looked. The attendant fussed with his intricately fastened obi and the long waterfall like sleeves of the garment. She fussed with his hair too, and made him take off his glasses before asking him how he looked.

Which Yuri found fucking hilarious.

Yuri can remember Yuuri spreading his arms wide, and doing a half turn on his heel examining himself in the mirror. His face was tinged with a rose colored blush.

“Wow,” spilled out of Yuri’s mouth before he could choke it back. There was no denying that Yuuri looked amazing in the wedding attire. The coal black top contrasted nicely against his skin. He walked in the long loose robes gracefully after a life time of practice in onsen yukata.

Light trickle in from the window and made him look like he was glowing.

Of course the picturesque scene was interrupted immediately by Victor barging into the dressing room. “Yuuri, these are so lovely we must get them. Even if it’s just for photos and-” Victor’s gasp was loud enough to startle every other patron in the small boutique. “Yuuri, you’re beautiful.”

“You’re wearing the same thing dumbass,” Yuri interjected.

Yuuri’s jaw dropped in admiration. “Victor.” Yuuri closed his mouth, and his pursed lips melted into a warm and inviting smile.

That was over two years ago. Yuri would never admit it out loud, but he likes this store a lot more now than he did a few years ago. At worlds last year, Mila dragged him into a tourist Yukata store and had him wait while she tried on an endless cotton river of Yukata. The store was cramped, and sticky hot, and filled with loud foreign tourists of every imaginable nationality. The shop keeper had a baseball game blaring over the radio over top of all of the noise.

The shop in Hasetsu is the exact opposite. Despite Hasetsu’s resurgence as a tourist location, it’s still a quiet and sleepy mountain town. The tourists that do come here, don’t stay for the shrines, or the summer festivals. There is nothing about Hasetsu’s that are unique. They come for the skating, and they stay for the skating.

The shop is quiet, and lined with rigid tatami floors. Yuri and Otabek seem to be the only customers in the store. The owners’ cat darts out from behind the counter to rub his cheeks against Yuri’s ankle.  Lots of little jars with bamboo sprigs line the counter.

To the right of the counter is a display of lacquered sandals in every color, alongside patterned socks to match. 

Yuri peels back the red fabric  flap which separated the shop from the outside world and lets Otabek through. Then, he greets the shop owner, a woman whose back hump is so pronounced, it sees as if she’s bent at the waist. Nevertheless, a long tape measure is wrapped around her shoulders. First she tells them “irasshaimase” formally, and then informally, “Back for your wedding now? You’re a little young.”

It makes Yuri’s face go borscht fucking red, and stammer out, with his face hidden in Otabek’s shoulder, “No,” the only saving grace was that she said it in Japanese, and Otabek doesn’t understand. He’s sick of everyone and their goddamn opinions. Aren’t the Japanese supposed to be quiet and reserved?

The shop owner’s son, a man in his forties with a round stomach and equally round glasses interjects and bows deeply at the waist, “please for give my mother, she rambles on in her old age.”

“What’s going on?” Otabek whispers in Russian, although there is no need.

Yuri considers not explaining any of it to Otabek. His face will return to a normal fucking shade, and they can move on. But Otabek loves sappy shit. “I came in here with the idiot couple when they were planning their wedding.”

“She thinks you caught the bouquet?”

“Something like that,” Yuri stammers.

“One of those?” Otabek gestures to the window display. In the center of the window is a snow white bridal uchikake , and next to it a black and gray groom’s outfit.

“Yeah.”

“You would look really good in one.” Otabek says. His lips curl into a half smile. “The black of the outfit and the green of your eyes.”

Yuri’s first thought is to tell Otabek to go to hell, but he is supposed to be laying it on thick. Not to mention, he did just sob on his boyfriend’s shoulder while he came less than an hour ago. “Really Altin?” Yuri scoffs softly. He can’t go _completely_ sappy either. Because, again, he just cried on his boyfriend’s shoulder while he came. “I thought you’d be a traditionalist, and wanna stuff me into my mom’s white dress.”

“Does Nikolai have it?” Otabek doesn’t skip a beat.

“I’m a lot taller than she was. You know? I’d have to get it altered or,”

“Sumimasen,” the clerk interjects.

Fuck. That happens a lot now when they’re together. Otabek will get him going, and then they won’t stop. They’ll go back and back and forth as if wherever they are is completely devoid of other humans. Sometimes it really does feel as if the entire world does consist of Otabek and Yuri, Yuri and Otabek.

He fucking wishes.

“Sorry,” Yuri explains the request quickly in his best Japanese. Usually when he buys clothes here, he goes to boutiques where everything is out on display. He can make up the difference with pointing. This is a little bit more complex.

The little old woman takes both of their measurements, despite the fact that they both seem to tower over her. She brings over a stepstool, and makes them both spread their arms out. Then she measures across their chests.

The look on Otabek’s face while he’s getting measured is fucking priceless. The tense, emotionally constipated look that he wears whenever he’s talking to the press paints his face with agony. Yuri tries his hardest to not laugh.

She pulls a few garments from the rack immediately, and puts those on either end of an empty rack near the changing area.

“We don’t get to choose?”

“If there’s something you want, I can ask for it.”

Otabek rocks on the tatami floor in sock feet. He refuses to meet Yuri’s gaze when he speaks once again. “The ones that she’s pulling are grey, dark blue, dark green. Neutral,” Otabek says softly. His voice is barely above a whisper, and that’s how Yuri knows that it is more than a mere observation.

“Men’s Yukata usually are.” Yuri presses forward. Otabek typically wears solid colors anyway. “Why?”

“You look really good in bright colors,” he explains sheepishly.

“Hey, um,” Yuri interrupts. Yuri does his best to explain his situation. “He likes it when I wear colors. Do you have anything in?”  Yuri’s brain short circuits when he tries to rapid fire switch from Russian Japanese and then back Russian once more. “What color?” He asks Otabek.

“Yellow is nice.”

“Yellow,” he translates.

The woman walks over to Otabek, and says several things to him which he did not understand. Yuri translates the best that he can on the fly, “she says you’ll have to trust her.”

There’s nothing quite like changing into your thin white Yukata underslip, and then having a old woman with whom you don’t share a common language stuff you into the Yukata. She works deftly, and wastes no time folding one side of the garment over the other. Then, she wraps the obi twice around Yuri’s waist and ties it intricately at the back. Yuri would consider it abrasive, if he hadn’t gone through this process before.

Otabek audibly yelps from the next dressing stall. Poor bastard. If Yuri knew how to tie an obi properly, he would’ve just gotten Otabek dressed himself…Of course, only after a _lot_ of teasing.  

Yuri doesn’t step out of the dressing stall right away. He takes a moment to examine himself. She had him try on several, before letting him try on the one he wears now. This one is an underwhelming shade of off white that lingers somewhere between cream and tan. However, it is patterned with large golden colored whorls on the fabric. Small white flowers interrupt these whorls. It’s a more feminine pattern than Yuri’s used to seeing men wear.

Yuri skates in gem lined costumes. He doesn’t mind this one little bit.

Yuri’s obi is a rich shade of royal purple. It is knotted at the back, and Yuri cranes his neck to look at it in the mirror.

Quickly, Yuri pulls his hair over one shoulder and braids the strands in rapid over under over under motions before tying the end with the hairband he keeps on his wrist.

Then, Yuri steps out of the changing room. Yuri looks towards Otabek’s stall. The proprietor has busied herself with refolding and rehanging all of the yukata that they tried on, but didn’t wear select.

“Do you like it?”

“Yes,” Yuri responds.

“He’ll like it,” she replies simply. “You’ll like his too.”

Otabek emerges from his own changing stall a moment later.

Yuri locks eyes with Otabek, and he likens the feeling to getting the wind knocked out of him when he lands the wrong way on the ice. Otabek is wearing a coal black yukata. It is decorated simply with grey stripes.  The pattern is unpretentious, bland even. Yuri swears that he’s seen several garments at onsen and ryokan.  Such a pattern is better suited for old codgers like Victor and Yuuri.

Knotted around his waist is a wide marigold colored obi. It compliments the lighter tones of his own yukata wonderfully.

Yuri sucks in a breath through his mouth and whispers, “Beka,” under his breath.

Simultaneously Otabek murmurs “Yura.”

What Otabek does to clothes: leather jackets, cable knit sweaters, workout gear, yukata even, is absolutely criminal.  

Their moment is cut short. The shop keeper flitters back and forth between the two of them, tightening obi, and tucking in folds in the Yukata. She brings them socks, and wooden clogs, and little tiny drawstring bags to put their phones in. Never finding satisfaction in their appearances, she continues to tuck stray strands of hair, and smoothing seams.

“You look really nice,” Yuri whispers under his breath while Otabek is trying to put on his socks.

“So do you,” Otabek agrees.

Yuri’s mouth curls into a smile, “better than in the blue one I had on earlier?”

“That is an impossible question to answer.”

When they’re finally allowed to pay and leave, the harsh midday sun has started to recede, and for that Yuri is grateful. It doesn’t stop him from immediately whipping out his fan and fanning himself, occasionally stopping to fan Otabek too, as they walk down the street.

“It’s too early to go to dinner. Wanna go to the temple?” Yuri slides his hand into Otabeks. He walks at a glacial pace as he tries to fan, and walk, and hold all at the same time.

“Sure.”

It is a fifteen minute walk from the shop to the pathway up the temple. From the pathway to the steps going up the mountain is another fifteen minutes. Yuri pockets his fan when they reach the tall overarching stalks of bamboo that will shield them from the unyielding heat until they start their ascent up the mountain.

There are 2,000 steps that meander around the and up the mountain to the shrine. At first walking in the wooden clogs is awkward. Then, they both seem to find their rhythm. The sound of wood hitting stone steps, and slapping the back of their heels is steady and occupies every little space in his brain. It keeps him from thinking too much about any one thing that gnaws on his consciousness. The warmth and the weight of Otabek’s hand in his pulls him forward not only up the mountain, but forces him to be present and not locked up in his own head.

When they make it to the top of the mountain, it is Otabek that leads them inside despite never being here before. The shrine is almost empty despite it being summer festival season. However, it is a weekday, and it’s still late afternoon. The only people that would be likely to be here anyway are school children and little old men who make the trek each day to say their prayers.

Otabek’s is jaw is set firm, and his expression is focused, but not tense.  Otabek examines several of the buildings in front of the shrine, as well as the path to the main treasure room. He purses his mouth together in anxiety, as if he cannot find what he wants. “Can you buy those little pieces of wood here?” At this point, Yuri has dragged him to enough shrines to know the typical procedure. Still, it’s usually Yuri whose spare 100 yen coins are spent on ema plaques, and sticks of incense, and good luck charms.

“Yeah, I think so,” and Yuri leads him to a stall.

Otabek buys one wooden plaque for him, and one for Yuri. “I’d wanted to tell you something last night.”

“Really?” Yuri feels his chest tighten. “I thought you were just really drunk.”

“I mean,” Otabek looks at him in the way that says more succinctly than words ever could, “Yes, but that isn’t the point.” Otabek steers them over to the collapsible table that is littered with markers and pens an discarded ema plaques. “I’m often not good at expressing what I feel, but,” Otabek squeezes his hand. “There’s something that I want very much right now. But I’m nervous about it.”

Yuri’s mind rapidly cycles through a thousand scenarios each inducing more anxiety than the last. “Out with it Altin.”

“I want to apply for admission at St. Petersburg University.” Otabek locks eyes with him again, traps his lower lip between his teeth, and then looks away furtively. “If it’s okay with you,” he adds quickly. Then, “I’m really afraid that I won’t get in.” It’s a lot of words for Otabek at once. He looks physically tired from forming the words and telling them to Yuri. His eyes are wide, vulnerable even. His stance is narrow, as if he wants to make himself as small as he possibly can among the wide and expansive grounds of the shrine.

Yuri can feel his heart drop into his stomach in the best kind of way. “Are you fucking serious Otabek?” Now his body feels as if his heart has shot back up from his stomach and into his chest. Now it’s pounding against his ribcage. Yuri feels light headed. It’s the thin mountain air, and Otabek’s sheepish and uncertain smile.

“Only if it’s okay.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Yuri repeats again.

Otabek nods.

“Of fucking course it’s okay.”  Yuri is standing a half step away from Otabek, and so it makes his usual run and leap hug a bit more difficult than he’d like. He settles for throwing his arms around Otabek, and wrapping a leg around his waist, and judging by the draft and the _look_ that he gets from a priestess over Otabek’s shoulder, he’s probably exposing himself right now. He doesn’t really care.

Yuri never imagined that it would be so simple. Things weren’t _ever_ that simple, but Yuri refuses to let any shred of anxiety ruin this for him. It’s easy enough for him to do. Otabek would never make this kind of decision without an immense amount of thought. If Otabek is ready, he’s been thinking about this for a long time. Instead, he focuses on the feeling of crisp fabric beneath his fingertips, and Otabek’s impossibly warm skin.

Yuri should be present. He should be in the here, and the now. This is a big fucking step. But it’s hard not to let his mind wander to the past year. In the first few days after he and Otabek parted ways, he’d feel lost, like he’d misplaced his keys or forgotten why he’d come into a room. There was a soft, understated sadness whenever he told Otabek over Skype, “I wish you could be there.” Of course there had been so much dread at parting again for the season. Knowing that these feelings had an expiration date made him tremble in Otabek’s grasp. It made him bury his face in Otabek’s shoulder and hide himself from the world.

“Yuri,” Otabek pleads. “Please don’t cry.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I-“ Yuri sniffs loudly. “I just,” his voice cracks again, and more tears begin to stream down his face. “I just never.” Yuri decided over the season that he would not ask, even at the end of the summer when he knew that he’d be feeling the most vulnerable. Otabek worked too hard to come home. Otabek had a love for his homeland that he himself did not understand completely, but respected infinitely. “You like Almaty so much,” Yuri’s voice is shaky and broken. It’s not _exactly_ what he wanted to say, but its close enough.

“Yura,” Otabek’s voice is steady. He peels Yuri off of his body slowly. Yuri’s face is the last thing to be unstuck from Otabek’s form. Otabek has to tilt his chin, and force him to look him in the eye. “Kazakhstan is important to me. Always. But,” Otabek purses his lips together once again, as if he’s patiently waiting for the next words to fall from his brain so he can further explain how he feels.

“In Kazakhstan, when do I have to leave the rink.”

“9 PM,” Yuri responds. They were chased out by maintenance many times last summer.

“When do we have to leave the rink in St. Petersburg?”

“Victor has a key. Yakov too.”

“And how often do I have to share with public skate?”

“Your evening session for sure,” it always pissed him off to no end, tripping over fucking brats while trying to do his step sequences.

“Who helped me learn a new quad?”

“Victor,” Yuri says as he wipes his tear stained cheeks off with his yukata sleeve.

“Right,” Otabek wipes the other side of his face with his own sleeve. “And they helped me recover faster too. Anton is a good coach. The best in Kazakhstan, but…” Otabek’s voice trails off. “I’m facing the same problems I had before I went to Russia the first time, and then America. Anton is a good coach. I need more if I am going to be better. I cannot represent my country properly, especially in Beijing, if I cannot get better. “

Yuri nods as is if to signify that he understands. In reality, he doesn’t. Except for a few short years in Moscow before he was scouted, he always had the very best.

There’s more hugging, and undignified crying into Otabek’s shoulder, and hot tearstained kisses that end too soon because his nose is congested from crying too much, and he has to come up for air. Then, finally, he composes himself.

“So,” Otabek says taking one of the many felt tipped pens at the table where guests can write their prayers and wishes. “I’m wishing for admission.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to tell me,” Yuri says. He takes the cap of his own pen between his teeth and rips it off.

“Are you sure?”

“Not really.”

Otabek writes his wish in neat Cyrillic, and Yuri writes his in sloppy hiragana that would make a first grader mock him.

“What does yours say? You can tell me, since I already told you.”

“It says the same that yours does,” Yuri responds. “Just written differently so we can make sure they get the message.”

They tie them to the wall next to a small worship area among hundreds of other small plaques. Some have similar requests: to get into law school, or dental school, or pass entrance exams. Others wish to find a spouse, get pregnant, and find a new apartment in the city. Others are vague, “to see you again,” or “to feel better.” Yuri runs his fingers over the smooth pieces of wood, and parts them when he cannot see the message.

“Is it okay to read them? If they belong to other people?” Otabek wraps an arm around his hip and holds him close.

“I don’t know.” Yuri’s never really thought about it before. It _feels_ different from the fortunes tied to the wires across the shrine. “It’s something I did when Victor used to send me up here a long ass time ago. Made me feel less lonely when I came to Japan for the first time.”

“You felt lonely?” Otabek does this sometimes. He gets retrospectively upset about things that happened before he knew Yuri as something more than just a memory. Yuri hates to admit it, but it’s kind of cute.

“Hm,” Otabek seems to buy Yuri’s explanation, and looks parts wooden plaques with his fingers now too. “That is how Almaty is to me now.”

They take one of the trails back to the waterfall shrine. Yuri likes that one best, despite his previous experiences there. The discussion doesn’t so much continue, so much as the minutes drag on and bring new questions to the surface. “Do you need to like, study for anything?” Yuri’s never even considered applying for school. It’s not his thing, and he’s glad to be done.

“Not really,” Otabek responds. “My grades were good in high school, and I went to one of the best schools in Almaty.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“I just have to write some essays.”

The waterfall is backed by a grey stone wall dotted with moss and lichens in every shade of green, brown, and grey. Intricate carvings are etched into the stone, and Yuri doesn’t really get how old all of this is until he sees the smooth edges in the carvings.

They gather water from the waterfall in shining metal cups on metal rods. They lean outward, collect water in the cups, and then Yuri reminds Otabek of the procedure.

“Wash your left hand first Beka. Then your right.”

Otabek spills water onto his Yukata sleeve.

“When will you know if you get in?”

“January maybe? They take awhile to process.”

They approach the smaller shrine, clap their hands, and throw coins. Otabek fishes big gold 500 yen coins out of his bag, and Yuri immediately understands. This is a big fucking deal.

“What do your parents think?’

“I haven’t outright told them, but I told them I was thinking about it. They’re happy, you know?”

Yuri remembers the first time he walked into Otabek’s parents’ shared home office space. The wall was fucking filled with framed degrees from Darya and Yusef, and old yellowed ones from Otabek’s grandfather. He knows that somewhere in the house his biological father’s degrees are stacked up and hidden away somewhere too. The Altin clan is too fucking smart for their own good as far as he’s concerned.

“Well your sister is going to be upset.”

Otabek visibly winces. Yuri says this while they’re at the souvenir station. He’s got a stack of charms, and post cards, and wooden torii figures in descending size. “Well, she’ll have to understand.”

Yuri pulls them through a crowd of school children who are visiting on a field trip. They wear matching uniforms, and matching caps, and matching backpacks. When he and Otabek pass through, they say “Hello,” in whatever shreds of language they know, Japanese, English, Chinese, to see what sticks.

Yuri responds back, in Russian much to their dismay.

“Would you want to live in the carriage house?” Otabek’s lived there for a little over two months. He can’t hate it right? Sure, the bed isn’t big enough, and Lilia “pops” in to make sure that they’re eating properly, but it’s something way nicer than most people their age have.

“I was hoping I could get an apartment in the city first. Then, maybe later, we could look for a place together.

Yuri’s almost certain that his eyes go glassy and wide like a fucking school girls’. Coming of age in St. Petersburg meant seeing apartments of characters on television and dreaming of having his own phone and television in his room. Not that that is even fucking relevant anymore.

Yuri has to physically shake the stars from his eyes and get his shit together. Otabek is probably being smart about this. They should probably try to live in the same city separately for more than two months at a time, and see if it works out.

Otabek’s sweet tooth dictates that they stop for shaved ice. Yuri is more than fine with that, as the heat is oppressive. They take their sandals off in order to sit in little tatami lined booths. Yuri pinches Otabek’s sock clad foot with his own.  Otabek pushes back against Yuri’s foot. It feels foolish, juvenile even considering what they’re actually discussing. It feels so fucking good. All of it: the cold of matcha flavored ice against his tongue, the damp and sticky feeling that melds his Yukata to his skin, and the sight of Otabek’s smile.

“So you have a coach already?”

Otabek flinches, as if he expects Yuri to have an adverse response to what comes next.

Yuri interjects immediately, because he isn’t stupid. Otabek wouldn’t make these kinds of statement unless he had some general plan. “You had to have thought of it.”

“When I was drunk with Victor, he said-“

“Seriously?” Yuri interrupts. “You mean I have something to be grateful toward that mother fucker about?” Yuri shovels an overflowing spoonful of shaved ice into his mouth and immediately recoils in pain. “God, that really pisses me off Altin, fuck.”

“Well Yuri,” Otabek smirks at him. It’s curved, and playful, and dangerous in all the right kind of ways. “Nothing is ever easy, right?”

After shaved ice, Yuri orders them a mess of takoyaki. He gets an order of the kind with bonito flakes and brown sauce and matcha, he gets an order of the kind with mayonnaise and roe, he gets an order of the kind with garlic sauce too, because why the fuck not?

“There’s one last thing,” Yuri says in between wolfish bites of his takoyaki. “The fucking romantic as fuck thing I was gonna do to impress you before you said you were moving to St. Petersburg.”

“Yuri, I have to get admitted-“

Yuri takes a page from the Otabek Altin handbook of shutting down bullshit. He throws up his hand, and silently demands that Otabek quit speaking.

There’s a pagoda on the other side of the shrine. On the walk over, Yuri asks a waif of a little old man, “can you take our photo?” the shrine doesn’t overlook the city proper. Instead, the path up the mountain meanders and winds onward over to the other side, where there is nothing but mountains and trees.

It makes a nice backdrop for Otabek and Yuri. They take a serious photo standing side by side, and an intimate shot of them embracing, and then, finally, they take a relaxed photo. Yuri wraps his arms around Otabek’s bottom, kneels down, and scoops him up. Maybe he’s too tall and too lanky to jump into Otabek’s arms. Maybe he’s too fucking happy to actually think about his actions.

The other shrine is in a five tiered pagoda that reaches up into the sky. They have to pay another 200 yen to go in, but Yuri knows that it will be worth it. Otabek blatantly loves this kind of thing, and Yuri secretly does too.

“What are we doing?”

“Read the sign,” Yuri instructs. He’s not about to actually _explain_ with words from his own goddamn mouth what they’re about to do. Yuri points to a large placard that’s written in Japanese and in English.

“Famous Hasetsu love stones,” Otabek reads aloud and grins at Yuri while he fucking does it. “Walk with eyes closed from one stone to the other, and you will find true love. If you cannot make it, you must wait for love to find you. If you cannot cross alone, you may have help from a friend, but you may also need an intermediary to find love in your life.”  

“We can go at it together right?” Otabek asks as soon as he’s read the sign.

“I guess so?” Yuri’s never had the rules formally explained to him. He just knows that Victor and Yuuri called to tell him about when they finally did it. Yuri hung up the call immediately.

Yuri takes Otabek’s hand, “No peaking Altin.”

“On three then?”

“Yeah.” Yuri screws his eyes shut.

Yuri trips over his sandals. Twice. Otabek plows into a school girl walking through the path, and Yuri has to yell, “don’t fucking open your eyes, Altin!” in Russian before switching back to Japanese and apologizing profusely.

They keep going despite it all. Step by step. Yuri hears the faint clunking sound of wooden sandal against something hard. “Yuri?”

Yuri, eyes still wrenched tight, leans down onto his knees and touches the second stone. “We did it Otabek!”

Yuri can feel Otabek dip down next to him. He didn’t for a moment risk letting go of Otabek’s hand. “Yuri,” Otabek repeats.

Yuri opens his eyes only to see Otabek closing the distance between them. Otabek’s eyes flutter shut, and then there’s soft subtle pressure on his mouth. Otabek’s hands are on his hips, and then Otabek shifts to deepen the kiss, but here’s the thing about wooden clog sandals, they’re unstable.

Otabek loses his balance, and falls into Yuri, and Yuri falls onto the ground with Otabek on top of him. I he got side eyed before for nearly exposing himself earlier, he shudders to think what they look like now on the ground.

However, the best thing, the very best thing, is that the kiss isn’t broken. Yuri falls the scant few inches from a kneeling position to flat on his ass with an undignified “oof” that’s swallowed up immediately by Otabek’s kiss. Otabek’s body blankets him, and It’s Yuri that has to pull away. “Otabek,” his voice is rough like gravel. “I love you.”

Otabek kisses him again, and then whispers, “I love you more.”

“No,” Yuri insists. He works his hands up Otabek’s body and pulls at the edges of his robe. “I really fucking love you.”

* * *

“Otabek,” Yuri starts in on him as soon as he answers the video call. “Do you mind telling me the fucking meaning.” Yuri pulls a thick terracotta colored envelope into the camera frame. It’s sealed with a large gold embossed sticker. Yuri tilts the envelope slightly, hoping that Otabek can see just how fucking shiny  and just how fucking fancy it is. “Of this big ass envelope addressed to your name?”

Otabek’s eyes widen and his jaw goes slack. “Well,”

“That came to my house, in St. Petersburg?”

“Can you just open it Yuri?” Otabek pleads. “You know what it is.”

“Do I?” Yuri leans forward in his desk chair and throws Otabek his most devious grin, the kind that is usually reserved only for Yakov or Victor these days.

“I wanted to be able to share the answer with you.”

“So fucking call me when YOU get the envelope dumbass. I saw this fucker in the mailbox this morning. It’s after dinner time now Otabek. I had to wait all fucking day for you to get done with practice.” Yuri lays into him simply because he has the chance to go onto a power trip. This kind of thing doesn’t happen often.

“I would’ve answered Yuri. I’m expecting it.”

“Well, I fucking wasn’t!” Yuri growls at the web cam. It makes princess meow at him from the bed.

“Can you open it now?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Yuri runs is nails along the sealed edge of the envelope. When that doesn’t work, he catches the corner with his teeth and tears.

“Yura,” Otabek groans.

“Oh my god.” Yuri spits out pieces of orange red paper. The texture is glossy and thick in his mouth.  It’s just an envelope that you _chose,_ ” Yuri takes time to stare Otabek down in the camera. “To send to me.”

“My mom likes to keep these kinds of things for me-“

“Ahem,” Yuri grabs the paper out of the envelope, and he dare not sneak a single glance further down the paper. “Dear Mr. Altin,” Yuri beams, “Hero of Kazakhstan,” he adds because he’s running out of time and wherewithal to milk it anymore.

Otabek pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers and tries to rub his frustration away.

“We are,” Yuri wonders for a moment if he can lie through his teeth and make up a rejection letter. No fucking way. He doesn’t have it in him. He can already feel that his mouth is pulled into a big stupid fucking grin right. “We are pleased to inform you that the Literature Department at St. Petersburg University recommends you for admission to St. Petersburg University.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Yukatas:  
>  Yuri’s http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/358910/
> 
> Otabek’s https://www.amazon.com/Kato-Kyoto-Japanese-Yukata-Extra/dp/B00C2N6BEC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1497148496&sr=8-5&keywords=japanese+yukata+men


End file.
